20 PHOTOGRAPHIC SURVEY OP THE COUNTY. 



cannot check the cnrrent that will soon destroy all the valuaLle 

 work of past a^^jes yet remaining to us, we may at any rate 

 endeavour to secure some record, accurate and permanent, of what 

 these things were like before the touch of the destroyer came upon 

 them. This can be best done by photography, A photograph is 

 worth much more than any drawing ever is from the standpoint 

 from which I am regarding it — namely, as an absolutely truthful and 

 accurate representation of existing facts ; that is, if the photo- 

 grapher is careful to use suitable lenses and to select good points of 

 view. 



Next we see old-world habits and customs passing away, the 

 smock frock of the rustic giving place to the shoddy jacket or the 

 fashionable broadcloth. Village life is changing, the maypole is 

 now seldom seen, the fairs are shorn of their ancient glory, the 

 harvest home has given way to the thanksgiving service, and, 

 perhaps, many evils die with these old things, and the changes 

 are changes in many cases for the better ; but yet I, for one, cannot 

 see Ihem disappear without regret. I know that one distinguished 

 member of your clul), Avhose name is now known wherever 

 English books are read, and whose novels have taken the foremost 

 place in modern literature, has done much, and is doing much, to 

 depict with his graphic pen the habits and characters of Wessex 

 folk in present and recent times. His books are photographs, so 

 to say, in words ; but I should also like to see photographs in 

 permanent platinum salts of such men and women as Gabriel 

 Oak with his sheep on the Downs, Tranter Dewy with his 

 hogshead of cider, Old William Avith his bass-viol, pretty fickle 

 Anne Garland at the mill, noble John Loveday in all his bravery. 

 Old "Sir" John with his maudlin boasts about his lead-coffined 

 ancestry at Bere Regis, and poor pure Tess among the cows on 

 the dairy farm, or hacking swedes on the bleak hills of central 

 Dorset. And it is not too late even now to get some such pictures, 

 though I fear the days of grace are but few. Again, much 

 valuable work may be done by photography to geology. And I 

 presume this science comes within the scope of the Dorset Field 



