uranium, "which admits in a higher degree than the paper the luminous action of storing up with the persistent luminous activity." The picture, when taken, as before, is fixed by simple immersion in pure water till the salt of uranium is completely removed. Thus fixed, the pictures resist the energetic action of a boiling solution of cyanuret of potash; and we may therefore hope that they will be indestructible by time. This great discovery of M. Niepce St Victor will be received with surprise by the scientific world, who regard light and all its chemical influences as the effect of simple motion. When light has been stored up for days, it is difficult to understand how it can afterwards begin to vibrate and perform all its former functions. Although M. Niepce St Victor's experiment on the permanance of the nitrate of uranium photographs is very interesting, yet time only can solve the problem of their absolute indestructibility; and we must continue to practise the art with all the fears and misgivings of the past. It is fortunate, however, that several processes have been invented by which photographs can be rendered as permanent as engravings, and multiplied to any extent. The best of these processes is the photo-galvanographic one of Mr Paul Pretsch, who, after securing his right by patent, established a company at Islington, and has published in a series of numbers magnificent specimens of the art. Solutions of glue in solutions of nitrate of silver, iodide of potassium, and bichromate of potash, are mixed according to a rule, and spread like albumen over the glass plate. A photograph or engraving is placed on the prepared plate, and a negative taken in sun-light. The glass is then placed in water with a little alcohol, and the darkened parts are rendered soluble, while the other parts are insoluble, so that in a few minutes we have a picture represented not only by light and shadow, but by the unequal thickness of the gelatine on the glass. When the plate is dry, soft gutta-percha is pressed upon the picture till it hardens. The gutta-percha has consequently an image the reverse of the first. After rubbing it over with bronze powder or black lead, it is placed in a solution of sulphate of copper, and an electrotype plate taken from it, in the usual way, with a voltaic battery. From this plate others can be readily taken, and, as in ordinary copperplate printing, thousands of copies can be thrown off. "By this process," says Mr Hunt," "pictures, in which the most delicate details are very faithfully preserved, and the nice gradations in light and shadow maintained in all their beauty, are now printed from the electrotype plate, obtained from the photograph. The process of photo-galvanography is evidently destined The paper is immersed five minutes in a solution of 20 grains of nitrate of uranium in 100 grains of water; or it may be floated on the solution, so as to penetrate through only half the thickness of the paper. 2 Manual of Photography, pp. 269, 270. Applications of Photography. 209 to take a very high position as a means of preserving the beauties of nature and art.' Since the publication of our former article, photography has had many new and valuable applications, not only to the fine but to the useful arts. In miniature painting it has created a new profession. Mr Duppa, a distinguished artist, after making his photograph transparent, paints with oil colours on the back of the photograph, so that he never can take away the original likeness. Mr Dickinson, on the contrary, and others, paint upon the photograph itself; and, at a trifling risk of affecting the likeness, they have the power of correcting defects, both in form and expression, which exist in almost every sun-picture. To the landscape and historical painter, photography has proved an invaluable assistant. Messrs Ross and Thomson published some time ago the most beautiful photographs of plants for foregrounds, taken while growing at the foot of rocks and trees. Of these, the ferns, the dock leaves, the foxglove, and the nettle are beyond all praise; but charming as these are, they are surpassed by two on a larger scale, which have recently appeared, under the names of "the Quiet Corner" and "the Dykeside." These photographs, 15 by 15 inches, full of the poetry of vegetable life, teem with wild plants of the most picturesque and lovely forms, and rich in the variety and luxuriance of leaf and stem. Though devoid of fragrance and of colour, they allure us to the cooling fountain which waters them. They tempt us to nestle in the little rocky hollow which they adorn, and to weep with human sympathies amid creations that are fated but to bloom and die. The most important application of photography has certainly been to the stereoscope, not only in reference to art, but to the great purposes of education, and to the illustration of works on every branch of knowledge. The surface of the moon has been drawn with singular beauty. The eclipses of the sun and moon have been delineated, and various other astronomical phenomena, which the observer could not otherwise have recorded. But perhaps one of the most curious applications of the art has been to microscopic portraits, as executed with such skill by Mr Dancer of Manchester. Some of these are so small that ten thousand could be included in a square inch, and yet, when magnified, the pictures have all the smoothness and vigour of ordinary photographs. The illustration of books by photography We regret to learn that the establishment at Islington is broken up, but we trust that Mr Pretsch will resume his labours with wealthy and active coadjutors. The French have executed fine photographs of plants after they have been placed in a vase or woven into garlands. English artists, too, have done the same with plants in a hot-house. See Brewster's Treatise on the Stereoscope, pp. 173-178. VOL. XXIX. NO. LVII. is, at present, a doubtful application of the art. The indestructible photo-galvanographs of Mr Pretsch render such a risk unnecessary. The circulation of photographs in periodicals, such as The Photographic Art Journal, cannot, we think, succeed. In the four numbers of that work, which ought to have contained eight first-rate photographs, there are only four worth possessing, including "Fruit by Lance," from a highly-coloured oil painting which photography cannot reproduce in light and shadow. The scene of Gray's Elegy in our copy, and likely in many, is entirely spoilt; and in our copy Miss Jewsbury's portrait is a feeble and ineffective photograph, though tolerably good in other copies which we have seen. What beauty is there in the altorelievo of Justin? and who cares for a view of " A Farm-yard in Hythe," with a lump of blurred foliage in the corner. But even if these photographs were good, and represented interesting historical subjects, and great men, and grand scenes in nature, they never could float the mawkish letterpress of science and literature with which they are interspersed. The Stereoscopic Magazine has yet to show its character, by giving only interesting subjects, and rejecting every picture, as an imposition on the public, which is not taken at the true binocular angle. If it does not, a rival, in which "the pictures are true representations of the human form and of external nature, would instantly supplant it. To give stereoscopic pictures of the human figure, whether living or in marble, in which the head is in advance of the neck, and the female dress draws away from the bust is a degradation of art; and to delineate a picturesque valley drawn out in startling perspective to amuse a clown, or groups of Egyptian ruins running out into a long street, is the freak of a Charlatan, and not the work of an artist. Upon looking into the past history of photography, it would be hazardous to predict its future. But though we dare not venture to shorten the arm of science, or limit its grasp, there are certain steps in advance which we may reasonably anticipate. Optical instruments are yet required to represent on a plane the human face, without deforming its lines and magnifying its imperfections. We still require a more sensitive tablet to perpetuate the tender expressions of domestic life, and to fix the bolder lines of intellect and of passion which are displayed in the forum and in the senate. But, above all, we long to preserve the life-tints of those we love to give to the ringlet its auburn, and to the eye its azure,-to perpetuate the maiden blush, and to rescue from oblivion even the hectic flush from which we are so soon to part. ART. IX.-1. Report of the Commissioners on the Regulations 2. Statistical Returns of the Sickness and Mortality prevalent in the Indian Army. By COL. SYKES. Transactions of the Statistical Society, 1847.-May 1851. IN the article on Rifle Practice, in our last number, we touched upon examples of the continued display, from the times of Ascham, and before them, of mental combined with bodily qualities, which have given the Anglo-Saxon race predominance in war; the maintenance of which qualities, and others which we are about specifically to describe, will be found to involve the maintenance and progress of that race, and with them, in these times, the chief progress of civilisation, as well as the safety of the Empire. When we speak of that race, we use for convenience, and in its widest sense, a current designation, comprehending the Scottish Lowland and Northern population of the island, and the AngloHibernian, speaking English, as well as that portion often distinguished as peculiarly Anglo-Saxon, but of which it is unknown whether strictly it is so or not. If we observe, as impartially as we may, the conditions, attested by foreigners, to which this race has hitherto owed its success, whether in peace or in war, the most prominent of them appear to be, great bodily strength, bravery, coolly and steadily maintained-great bodily and mental powers of endurance of adversity and of pain. Nations of the Celtic race, or chiefly composed of that race, as the French, frequently manifest greater intelligence and quickness, and often as much courage; but bodily they are inferior, and their bravery is not persistent. If they fail in their onslaughts, they do not rally so well, and they do not bear adversity so long or so patiently. The red line of the British dead, which marked the position where, on the last great battle-field of Waterloo, they had stood erect from sun-rise, -hour after hour the livelong day, to be shot at, until the enemy was tired of attacking, and yet at sun-set the "thin red line" of the living soldiers had strength unexhausted to make an overwhelming charge;—that field, in common with others, displayed the pre-eminent quality of their endurance. The American branch of the Anglo-Saxon race has lost nothing in courage, and has gained in intelligence and activity; but, partly by climate,and more by sanatory neglects and mismanagement, of which they have to be admonished,-they have deteriorated in bodily strength; and examples are not wanting to make it doubtful whether, on the open field, they would stand so patiently, so dutifully, and so long, as the better class of the native British soldiers. The patient character of their bravery is described by their adversaries, in the contrast to the noise and excitement of the French advance, presented by what they call the morne silence which commonly prevails in the Anglo-Saxon array of battle on the first approach to it. But what we deem the real greatness of their special quality of bravery, is often displayed not in battle-fields, but in meeting pain and disaster, in storms and shipwrecks, and under the regulations of discipline;-as was displayed by the soldiers in the transport ship, the "Maria Soames," when the hatches being closed upon them, in a storm, they came up in order, two by two, to receive a breath of air, and then retired to give their comrades a turn and a chance, until the relief proved ineffective for all, and all died. In bravery even under defeats, which are not allowed to become routs; in retreats, like that of Sale's Brigade; in defences, like that of Lucknow, we believe, the Anglo-Saxon is more distinguished than in battle, as also in the last scene, the bed of sickness and death. An eminent witness of human suffering, which she has made it a study for years in the chief hospitals of Europe to mitigate,-Miss Nightingale herself, bears testimony to the superior fortitude with which painful operations were borne, and death was met, by the AngloSaxon soldiers in the hospitals of the Crimea, as compared with the soldiers of every other race who were received in them. To the pre-eminent qualities of courage, endurance, and perseverance displayed in storms, in suffering, in battle, and applied to mining manufacturing enterprise, and the wielding of immense steam power, and productive industry, during peace, the nation owes its prosperity, and its resources for war. The actual number of slain in all the battles, naval as well as military, exclusive of the wounded, did not average one thousand per annum during the twenty-two years' war; whereas the numbers killed outright in mining explosions, in the burstings of steam-engines, in railways, in casualties of machinery, in burnings, scaldings, and other violent deaths sustained in industrial occupations during peace, average six times that number in England and Wales alone, apart from the deaths at sea. At a Congress of Bienfaisance held at Brussels, Mr Chadwick collected from concurrent foreign testimony the general admission, on actual measured results, which admit of no dispute, that two Anglo-Saxon agricultural labourers do the work of three Normans, of three Germans, of three Danes, or of three Norwegians. How portions of these kindred races have sunk in relative energy, whilst others of them have gained; how much may be due to social or political institutions, how much to bodily condition and race, would form most important subjects of inquiry. But in Germany the Anglo-Saxon miner and the |