374 



NATURE 



[February 14, 1901 



means of Canada balsam, and this is not difificult to do 

 after a little practice. 



By thus securing, as far as possible, an image of pure 

 silver in a clean gelatine film, drying it and sealing it up, 

 the photographer will have taken what appear to me to 

 be the best steps possible to preserve the photograph. 

 It may be a little more trouble than the ordinary routine, 

 but hardly so much trouble as is involved in the practice 

 of other photographic methods, such as wet collodion or 

 daguerreotype. But whatever the trouble, nothing short 

 of such treatment as has been indicated will give the 

 photographer the satisfaction of knowing that he has 

 done his best to preserve his plates. I have not referred 

 to toning, although so great an authority as Sir William 

 Crookes has recently referred to it, because a toning 

 process gives a more complex image, and therefore a 

 more difficult one to deal with, but also, and chiefly, 

 because toning is an incomplete operation, and so gives 

 an image of varying composition, and can hardly, by the 

 nature of the action, produce a proportional change 

 throughout the whole image. The fainter detail will be 

 proportionately more affected than the denser parts. 

 Measurements of the effects of the light are thus rendered 

 impossible, or at least doubtful, and so useless. 



But whatever care is taken to secure the preservation 

 of the original plate, if it is valuable or likely to become 

 valuable, it alone should not be trusted as the only 

 record of the result it bears. Within a comparatively 

 short time of its production, say within a few months, 

 one or two prints should be obtained from the plate. 

 These prints should be produced in the most simple 

 manner possible in order to avoid personal bias or 

 other possible errors consequent on a multiplicity of 

 manipulations. They should be of the nature of printed- 

 out prints, because a developed print (such as one on 

 bromide paper) allows much scope for variation. 

 Obviously the prints must be permanent. Platinum and 

 carbon prints are the only ones that fulfil these con- 

 ditions. Both are stated to require " development," but 

 this is a misapplication of the word, or a different appli- 

 cation from that which refers to the development of 

 gelatino-bromide plates. The point is that the full 

 chemical effect in both platinum and carbon prints is 

 produced by exposure to light alone, the after treatment 

 only utilising the change. A platinum print is probably 

 more trustworthy as to permanency than a carbon print. 

 The paper used must be of excellent quality, or the sen- 

 sitive coating would be interfered with, and there appears 

 to be nothing whatever that will affect a platinum image, 

 unless, indeed, it is treated with chemicals that dis- 

 integrate the paper at the same time. Platinum prints, 

 however, are not the best agents for showing fine detail 

 or very small differences of density. In this respect they 

 may be improved and much additional brilliancy imparted 

 to them by applying any of the waxing preparations 

 made for waxing prints. For rendering delicate tones, 

 doubtless a carbon transparency would be superior to a 

 platinum print. But if a photographic plate is of such 

 a character that it is desired to preserve its record as 

 nearly as possible for ever, it would not be an undue 

 precaution or an excessive trouble to make two or three 

 platinum prints as well as a carbon transparency from it. 

 If the original plate is to be preserved by sealing it up 

 with Canada balsam, then it should be varnished with a 

 iac or similar varnish forgetting the prints. The varnish 

 could then be easily removed, if necessary, before the 

 sealing up of the plate, or a varnish might be used that 

 would be unaffected by the balsam.' But on no account 

 whatever must an unprotected film be touched by any 

 platinum paper, carbon tissue, or any paper upon which 

 a printed-out image can be produced, because all such 

 papers contain soluble substances that prejudicially affect 

 the image. 



By working on the lines indicated, I think that it would 



NO. 1633. VOL. 63] 



be difficult to set a probable maximum limit to the 

 duration of photographic records. We know how few 

 years are sufficient to produce a measurable deterioration 

 in many of the photographs as at present produced. 



Chapman Jones. 



A LANCASHIRE COLLEGE} 



IX/TR. HARTOG and the authorities of the Owens 

 ^^*- College are to be congratulated on their work, 

 which owes its origin in part, to quote the words of the 

 preface, " To a request fron\ the committee of the Edu- 

 cation Exhibition, held in London in January last, that 

 the authorities of the college should furnish an account 

 of the institution for that Exhibition and for the Paris 

 Exhibition, to which it was preliminary, in part to the 

 desire of the authorities of the college for a record of its 

 development and present condition in celebration of its 

 jubilee." 



The introductory chapters deal with the history of 

 the college and its buildings, its government and finance, 

 and its relation to the Victoria University. Then follow 

 details of the classes and lectures, with particulars of the 

 special departments and of other allied institutions, 

 lists of fellowships and prizes, and, lastly, a striking record 

 of original publications by members of the college. 



It appears that the earliest attempt to establish a 

 University in Manchester was made in 1640, when Henry 

 Fairfax presented a petition to Parliament in favour of 

 this course. The opposition of the city of York killed 

 the project ; the next similar attempt was made in 1877, 

 buc the opposition of the city of Leeds led to the 

 establishment of the Victoria University. 



Between these dates various efforts were made to pro- 

 mote a college for higher education in the city ; none of 

 these, however, met with marked success until, in 1851, 

 the Owens College was founded in accordance with the 

 will of John Owens, a Manchester merchant and 

 spinner. 



The first chairman of the Owens trustees was George 

 Faulkner, the friend and partner of the founder, who, it 

 is said on good authority, refused to become Owens's heir, 

 and persuaded him to found a college. Owens's bequest 

 realised about 90,000/., and, in accordance with the 

 founder's decision, the income from this was spent mainly 

 on the provision from the first of an adequate teaching 

 staff. To this Mr. Hartog with justice attributes a great 

 share in the ultimate rise of the college. The histories 

 of Owens College and of University College, Liverpool, 

 a sister member of the Victoria University, teach the 

 same truth. Owens College began in a hired house ; 

 University College in a disused lunatic asylum ; but in both 

 cases the devotion and splendid energy of the staff won 

 in time the confidence of large-hearted men and women 

 in their respective towns, and though the equipment of 

 neither college is yet complete, the laboratories and class 

 rooms, museums and libraries bear striking testimony to 

 the wisdom of those who moulded the institutions in their 

 early days. 



Owens College began with five professors and two 

 teachers. To-day its staff consists of thirty professors, 

 thirty-four independent lecturers, and thirty-nine assistant 

 lecturers and demonstrators. 



But success did not come at once ; the number of day 

 students, which at first was sixty-two, in 1857 dropped 

 to thirty-three ; the local newspapers pronounced the 

 scheme to be a mortifying failure. The trustees and the 

 staff, however, held their course, and from 1858 onward 

 the numbers have gone on increasing until, during last 

 session, they reached the total of 1002. A building fund, 



1 " The Owens College, Manchester, founded 1851. Abrief History of the 

 College and Description of its various Departments." Edited by P. J. 

 Hartog, B.Sc. Pp. viii -h 260. (Manchester: Cornish, 1900.) 



