304 The Dawn of Light Printing. [July, 



devices attempted to promote the bleaching action of the 

 light, supplies of carbonic acid, chlorine, and hydrogen, 

 being at times introduced into the camera during the period 

 of exposure, but all to no purpose, and Niepce thereupon 

 wisely abandoned this hopeless problem, and addressed 

 himself to the question of producing permanent photographs. 

 In this he was more successful, albeit the research was a 

 long and tedious one, for we find that in the years 1823 an d 

 1824 he had obtained permanent pictures upon metal, glass, 

 and paper surfaces, by employing as the sensitive agent 

 bitumen of Judea, which is rendered by the action of light 

 insoluble in certain essential oils that otherwise readily 

 dissolve it. So permanent, indeed, are these early examples 

 of light-printing, that there exist even at the present moment 

 at the Museum at Chalons, as likewise at our own British 

 Museum, several specimens of Niepceotype executed about 

 this time. 



We must pass rapidly over Niepce's further experiments 

 to elaborate a photo-engraving process, the results of which 

 still form the basis of several well-known photo-lithographic 

 methods, as likewise his essays with silver plates and iodine, 

 which seem to point so curiously to the subsequent invention 

 of Daguerreotpye. Our readers probably remember the 

 circumstance of Niepce's journey to London in 1827, to 

 visit his dying brother at Kew (a photograph of Kew church 

 taken about this time is, we believe, in the British Museum 

 at the present moment), and how he afterwards remained in 

 London in the hope of profiting by his invention ; also the 

 fact of his wishing to bring forward the results of his labours 

 before the Royal Society, which body, however, refused to 

 see his productions unless the whole history of the affair 

 was divulged. After this period poor Niepce seems to have 

 lost heart in his cherished undertaking, and returned the 

 following year to France dissappointed and sadly broken 

 down. It was on his way back through Paris that he 

 first heard of Daguerre, then famous as a skilful painter, 

 to whom he was introduced as one who had also 

 worked in the same direction as himself. After some 

 correspondence a deed of partnership was eventually drawn 

 up between the two in December, 1829, from a perusal 

 of which it would seem that Daguerre was by far the 

 chief gainer in the contract ; in this document, of which 

 a fac simile has been published, Niepce describes in detail 

 the whole of his experiments and results from first to 

 last, while Daguerre discloses nothing whatever, but agrees 

 simply to contribute his labours towards the further elabora- 



