SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
551 
PHOTOGRAPHY. 
The supposed early Photographs. — The startling claims advanced in 
support of these photographs have melted into thin air. Based as they 
were on mere rumours and conjectures, little else indeed could have been 
expected ; and yet how many were the uplifted hands and wondering eyes, 
and how loud the exclamations with which such claims were at first re- 
ceived ! The impressions on metal appear to be comparatively modern 
productions by the process of Daguerre, and it is more than suspected that 
the paper pictures were produced by some clumsy, half-mechanical, half- 
secret process called in its day the Polygraphic, which merely printed 
outlines previously made by an artist to be afterwards filled in by hand. 
The Mr. Price, too, whose statements originated all this fuss, has been 
proved quite unworthy of belief ; and has, moreover, absconded to escape 
the unpleasant results of an imperfect appreciation of “ meum et tuum ” 
and the search of the detective police ; while in consequence of the ab- 
stracted papers containing certain family secrets, the angry representative 
of Matthew Boulton — to whose statements we owe our last piece of infor- 
mation concerning Mr. Price — heaps unsparing abuse on the head of 
Mr. Smith for his undue enthusiasm in the cause of scientific discovery. 
Sic transit gloria mundi ! 
A New Carbon Process. — As it was, so it is. The fond dream of photo- 
graphers has been for many years the obtaining of a perfected carbon 
process ; and yet when in 1860 M. Fargier patented a process in France 
by which the most exquisitely beautiful carbon prints are obtainable, it 
was suffered to rest in cold obscurity, reminding us of the old alchemists, 
who were always seeking new scientific facts, yet when they discovered the 
grand first principle of photographic art, could find no better use for it 
than that of printing photographic labels for bottles ! But our modern 
photographers are, after all, not quite so blind ; for within the last month 
or two the photographic world has been in a ferment of excitement con- 
cerning a new carbon process, the invention of Mr. Joseph Swan, an 
amateur photographer residing in Newcastle*on-Tyne, whose process was 
first described in a paper read before the Photographic Society at King’s 
College on the 5th of April last. 
Mr. Swan’s process is somewhat easier in practice than that of M. 
Fargier, and produces results equally beautiful and perfect ; but we think 
he will have some difficulty in establishing his claim to the patents which 
he has already secured in Great Britain and Ireland, France, Belgium, 
Spain, Prussia, Austria, and America, should any one be bold enough to 
infringe the same. The process may be thus briefly described : — A mix- 
ture is made containing one part of a solution of bichromate of ammonia 
in three parts of water, and to this is added another mixture consisting 
of two parts of gelatine, one part of sugar, and eight parts of water. With 
this solution the pigment giving the desired colour is next mixed, which 
may be Indian ink, either alone or mixed with lake and indigo, or any 
other suitable pigments. A glass plate having been coated with plain 
collodion is allowed to dry, and again coated with the above mixture. 
