THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
43
Meldola, for the light so caught it that it made the water look bright; whereas when
he-saw it some years ago it was as black as ink ; he hoped that it was better now.
Mr. Andrew Johnston (Chairman of the Essex County Council), in seconding
the vote of thanks, said that about 1839 or 1840 he became the possessor of two of
the earlier photographs ; one was a portrait of the Pope, and the other a picture of St.
Peter's, at Rome. In course of years they grew dusty ; he removed the cover glass
from one, rubbed off the dust, and at the same time wiped the picture clean off the
plate. The other he presented to a society which preserves ancient photographs.
Mr. John Spiller thought that Prof. Meldola's programme might have been
extended to photomicrography, and to some other branches. The use of photo-
graphy at solar eclipses might have been noticed. He possessed a photograph of
the corona, taken during one of the early eclipses by Lord Lindsay, who had
given it to him.
The Rev. Mr. Howell had heard that small cameras could be used for some
kind of stellar research. Was that so ? He believed that if it were pointed to
the north, the stars nearest the pole would describe circular tracks on a sensitive
plate during long exposures, and that the more the camera was pointed towards
the south, the more did the tracks of the stars approximate on the plate to a
straight line. Last year a man taking a shot with a hand camera at the stars was
said to have accidentally photographed a meteor as well.
Mr. F. H. Varley, C.E., had hoped that when Prof. Meldola was dealing with
interference phenomena, he would have spoken of the photographing of colours,
by Prof. Lippmann's process, especially as the lecturer had one of those photo-
graphs in his possession. He should also have liked to have heard something of
the method of building up pictures resembling the tints of Nature, by the three
colour-processes,
Mr. A. P. Wire called attention to a suggestion made in "Photography" some
time ago that advantage to all concerned might be gained if the local photo-
graphic societies in Essex and the Essex Field Club were to work together in
obtaining faithful photographs of natural phenomena and old buildings, etc.,
for permanent registration.
Mr. W, A. Longmore, President of the Walthamstow Literary and Scientific
Institution, spoke of the interest with which he had listened to the lecture, and
hoped that more meetings of the kind might be held in Walthamstow.
Prof. Meldola, in reply, said that the British Association Committee recom-
mended the use of orthochromatic plates in geological photography, as furnishing
much more striking and valuable pictures than ordinary plates. In reply to Mr.
Howell's remarks, he had never seen photographs of stars taken by an ordinary
camera, and he thought that nothing would be gained by obtaining streaks of
light described by images of their paths across the plate. In the time at his dis-
posal it was clearly impossible to cover the whole ground of the scientific uses
of photography, hence the omissions which had been mentioned by some of the
speakers. As to Mr. Valley's criticism there was no doubt, he said, that Prof.
Lippmann's method was the greatest advance which has ever been made in the
photographing of colours, and he had received from him a very beautiful speci-
men of the solar spectrum. He had lent it, and was therefore unable to bring it
to the meeting. Moreover, it would have been difficult to arrange the lantern to
project the image by reflected light, which was the way the Lippmann images
must be viewed.
The meeting then resolved itself into the usual conversazione, light refresh-
ments being served in an adjoining room.