After thoroughly cleaning a glass plate of the same size as that on which the picture to be secured is made, and moving all dust from the picture, I hold the glass containing the picture in a horizontal position with the pictured side uppermost, then apply the balsam in a line along one edge of the glass and placing one edge of the second glass in close contact with the first, containing the balsam, press them gradually together towards the opposite edge, causing the balsam to flow by a gentle pressure towards the opposite edge, in this manner excluding all air from between the glasses; then by an even pressure exclude the superabundant balsam. The advantages of my improvements are, that by a mechanical combination of the balsam with the picture it is greatly increased in strength and beauty, by an additional brilliancy and the exhibition of the most minute delineations; and by the application of the second glass in combination with the balsam, the picture is hermetically sealed and rendered entirely permanent, by being secured from the influence of both air and moisture, and also from injury by dust or other extraneous matter, or acid vapors, or any violence less than what could occasion the fracture of the plate glass. I am aware of the previous use of balsam for the cementing of lenses and the securing of microscopic objects, and other like purposes, and do not therefore extend my claim to any of these uses; but What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is the combination of balsam with photographic pictures on glass, and with additional glass by which they; with the balsam, are hermetically sealed, as described in the specifications; and for the purposes therein set forth, and for no other. James A. Cutting. Issac Rehn, } _Witnesses._ Samuel Grubb. } _Dated July 11th, 1854._ * * * * * PATENT FOR DISPLACING WATER FROM SOLUBLE COTTON BY THE USE OF ALCOHOL; ALSO, FOR THE USE OF BROMIDE OF POTASSIUM IN COMBINATION WITH COLLODION. The schedule referred to in these Letters Patent, and making part of the same. _To all to whom these presents shall come:_ Be it known that I, James A. Cutting, of Boston, in the County of Suffolk and State of Massachusetts, have invented certain improvements in making photographic pictures, and that the following is a full, clear and exact description of the principle or character which distinguishes them from all other things before known, and of the usual manner of making, modifying, and using the same. My improvements relate to that class of photographic pictures in which the pictures are obtained upon a prepared film of glass or other substance.