SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
277 
in every respect ordinary Daguerreotypes, and in another paper photo- 
graphs, or positive prints — had been discovered in the library of 
the late Matthew Boulton, at Soho, Birmingham, a room that had 
not been opened for fifty years consequently leading to the startling 
conclusion, that the discovery of producing and fixing pictures by 
photographic agency must date from a much earlier period than is 
ordinarily assigned to it in the history of photography, and that priority 
of that discovery is attributable to Englishmen instead of French savans. 
In the month of November, 1862, Mr. Smith, of the Patent Museum, 
South Kensington, having occasion to visit Birmingham, discovered in the 
counting-house of Boulton’s factory the paper and metal pictures ; and as 
these were alleged, by persons on the spot, to have been produced by 
James Watt, he collected the following particulars regarding these inte- 
resting and mysterious relics : — The paper pictures, from ample docu- 
mentary evidence connected with them, prove to be the result of a process 
discovered by a Mr. Francis Egerton, who was in the employ of Boulton. 
These are of large size, and on paper bearing the name of “ Whatman,” 
proved by the water-mark to be about one hundred years old. The 
pictures are numerous, and, without exception, copies of paintings, mostly 
from the works of Angelica Kauffman and Benjamin West, but reversed , 
some of the figures being left-handed ; -were apparently produced in mono- 
chrome, and afterwards coloured by a person named Barney, of Wolver- 
hampton, who coloured for the Boulton firm before Watt became a partner ; 
were sold at a very low price, considering their size — viz., about 7s. 6d. 
per copy, as proved by existing invoices ; and while there is nothing to 
prove that they have been produced by photographic agency, there is 
nothing, on the other hand, to militate against such a conclusion, with 
the exception that an analytical chemist can discover no trace of silver in 
the sample first assayed ; but then, other salts are subject to the influence 
of light. But one thing is certain : they could not have been produced by 
aid of a camera, as no lens of that day could have rendered subjects of 
their size with such freedom from distortion. These paper pictures were 
produced in 1780, and each subject is evidently from the same cliche. 
With regard to the pictures on the metal plates, they were found packed 
between two pieces of Quebec yellow pine ; and by a label attached to one, 
its subject is stated to be that of Matthew Boulton’s house at Soho, before 
the alterations in 1791 ; and an old man of the name of Townshend, who 
died some years since at the age of ninety-two, is stated to have declared 
to Mr. Price, the agent of the Boulton family, that he had actually seen 
the picture taken, at the same time giving the names of persons who were 
present on the occasion. Mr. Shadbolt has examined these microscopically, 
and he states his conviction that the images in each have been formed by 
means of a lens, probably a quartz spectacle lens, and sensitive chemicals, 
and that they are, in the strictest sense of the term, photographs of the 
original object portrayed, and not reproductions from drawings, as in the 
* This part of the statement, we are informed, has been contradicted by 
One of the Boulton family* 
