96 



which I have called photogenic drawing-paper, consequently, the 

 final results of the two processes cannot anyhow be distinguished. 

 I thank you for your courtesy in mentioning that you are about 

 to send a Paper on the subject to the Royal Irish Academy by the 

 hands of Dr. Robinson. May I request that this letter and my 

 former one, with the permission of the Academy, may be read to 

 them on the same occasion, if Dr. Robinson will kindly take charge 

 of them. It may be left to their scientific judgment to say whether 

 a new principle is involved or not in your experiments. If any 

 new principle be involved, then a distinctive name, such as you 

 have given, is, of course, desirable, — otherwise it would not be so. 

 I would refer also to the instance of the Daguerreotype, now so dif- 

 ferently managed from what it used to be at the time of its first 

 promulgation. It is now at least a hundred times more rapid in 

 its effects, but it still continues to be called the Daguerreotype. 

 On the other hand, I believe it is not affirmed that any process on 

 paper has been discovered more rapid or more certain than the 

 Calotype ; I am not aware of any such having been as yet described. 

 We should certainly be very grateful to any one who discovered a 

 more rapid process, depending on new combinations; but if I do 

 not err in defining the Calotype process as depending on a combi- 

 nation of iodine, silver, and a deoxydising agent, your process 

 would be included in that definition, unless good reasons to the 

 contrary could be shewn, all which I willingly leave to the judg- 

 ment of the scientific world : and, thanking you for your polite 

 attention in so soon answering my last letter, 



" I remain. Sir, 



" Your's very truly, 



" H. Fox Talbot. 



" P. S. — If your process does anything which the Calotype can- 

 not do, or does it better, I willingly admit its importance ; but I 

 apprehend that you are not aware of the facility and rapidity with 

 which our Calotype operations are now conducted. Indeed, that 

 was my chief reason for troubling you with a letter, as your Paper 

 read at the York meeting mentioned the spontaneous development 

 of photogenic images as something new, whereas it is a phenomenon 



