
626 The American Naturalist. [July, 
WHERE YOUNG AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHERS CAN 
BE OF ASSISTANCE: TO SCIENCE. 
BY | DR, R W. SHUFELDE, 
F all the instruments that have come into use in the hands of 
science during the latter part of the present decade, none of 
them have been found so universally helpful as has been the 
camera. The photographic camera, with its modern multitudinous 
appliances, has made its power felt in the greatest variety of 
ways in all the departments of science, as in physics, chemistry, 
mechanics, astronomy, zoology, and each and the rest. But it is 
not my object to present an historical essay here upon this 
instrument, nor even to make the attempt to write out all I know 
about the operating of one in its details; it is merely my aim to 
bring a few practical hints before young photographers, and show 
them some of the new fields wherein, by patience and study, they 
can put their instruments to very excellent uses. As we all know, 
the art of photography is now easily acquired, and the producing 
of photographic pictures a pleasurable and sometimes a profitable 
employment. Yet how often it is that we see a young person 
purchase a first-class camera with its entire outfit, and after 
coming to be a good photographer, is satisfied at the end of a 
year or so with having filled a large album with pictures of the 
country around about his or her place of residence, or groups of 
friends, and perhaps a few other subjects, when the whole, save 
the album, is relegated to a corner in the garret. This is by no 
means a rare occurrence and the ‘end of such enterprises. 
I am a working naturalist, and a number of years ago con- 
ceived the idea that a good photographic outfit would meet a 
variety of ends in the course of my labors. A hundred dollars 
gave me one, and three times that amount of money would not 
induce me to part with it now. Including all my early failures, 
more than fifty per cent. of my pictures, and there have been a 
great many of them, have been published as illustrations to my 
scientific papers, and elsewhere. 




