Miscellanies. 1C9 



MISCELLANIES. 



DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN 



called Photogenic and the art Photography. 



artificial 



Remark— The great interest excited by this subject induces us to post- 

 pone the greater part of tlie miscellany which we had prepared and even 

 set up for the present number, that we may make room for general 

 notices from foreign Journals— dctailuig the history of the processes as 

 far as known, and the most perfect state of the art, as far as it has gone. 



I. Photogenic Drawings. 



Public attention has been called of late to a mode of drawing said to 

 have been invented at Paris by M. Daguerre, and by which he fires upon 

 a metallic plate the lights and shadows of a landscape or figure solely by 

 the action of the solar light. The interest thus excited has b*^en increased 

 by the publication of a series of experiments made by our countryman 

 Mr. Talbot, directed towards the same object, and producing nearly simi- 

 lar results. In describing this interesting invention it will be well to 

 commence with the first discoveries made by Mr. Wedgwood about the 

 year 1800, and afterwards extended by Sir Humphry Davy, 



The attention of these two eminent chemists was directed to the sub- 

 ject by the extraordinary effect produced by light upon the nitrate of silver, 

 which led them to hope that the purposes of the artist might be assisted 

 by the susceptibility of the metallic oxide. The first experiment was 

 made by Mr. Wedgwood for the purpose of copying paintings upon glass, 

 and was eminently successful ; the copy obtained possessing all the fig- 

 ures of the original, in their native shades and colors; it was also in a 

 high degree permanent, so long as it was preserved from the action of the 

 light. The same gentleman discovered that the shadow of an opaque ob- 

 ject thrown upon the paper was copied in outline with great correctness; 

 but though both these celebrated chemists were constant and persevering 

 in their endeavors to render the drawing permanent, they were entirely 

 unsuccessful; the lighter shades darkening by exposures and thus oblit- 

 erating the impression. 



Their failure in this Important object was published with their experi- 

 ments in the Philosophical Transactions, and both having given up the 

 attempt, their discoveries have since remained unimproved. But in the 

 meanwhile M. Daguerre, it appears, struck by some hints he had received 

 from a friend, has steadily pursued his experimants for the last twenty 



* Foreign Quarterly Review, No, 81 

 Vol. xssvii, No. 1.— July, 1S39, bis. 22 



