Photographic tourists—and their name now is legion—will all admit that their greatest drawback is represented by the weight of the glass plates which they must carry from place to place in addition to their other apparatus. This difficulty has just been obviated by the introduction of a material as a support for the photographic image which is as light as paper, so that in the compass of an ordinary two-shilling railway novel, the tourist can carry with him the sensitised material for a couple of hundred pictures. This material is known as Woodbury tissue, and was the last invention of the late eminent experimenter who gave his name to the beautiful Woodburytype process of photography. His successors have brought the tissue to marketable perfection, and produce a material as translucent as glass and one-twentieth part of its weight. The tissue is used in a singularly ingenious form of dark slide or double back, which can be readily adjusted to existing forms of cameras. In the _Camera_ magazine, a very curious phenomenon in connection with photography is recorded by the person who observed it. He took a portrait of a child apparently in full health and with a clear skin. The negative picture showed the face to be thickly covered with an eruption. Three days afterwards, the child was covered with spots due to prickly heat. ‘The camera had seen and photographed the eruption three days before it was visible to the eye.’ Another case of a somewhat similar kind is also recorded where a child showed spots on his portrait which were invisible on his face a fortnight previous to an attack of smallpox. It is suggested that these cases might point to a new method of medical diagnosis. The Severn tunnel, one of the greatest engineering undertakings of modern times, is at last finished, and will be shortly open for passenger traffic, as it has been some weeks for the conveyance of goods. The total cost of this great work is estimated at two millions sterling. The cost has been greatly augmented by the unlooked-for difficulties which have cropped up during the progress of the works. Commencing in 1873, the contractor had made steady progress for the following six years, when a land spring was accidentally tapped, and the partially constructed tunnel was flooded. Again, in 1881 the seawater found out a weak place on the Gloucestershire side of the works, and poured in in torrents. Once more, in 1883 the old land spring again filled the works with water, which had to be pumped out; and finally, about the same time, a tidal wave brought about a great amount of destruction to the works; so we may look upon the completed tunnel not only as a great monument of engineering skill, but as an example of unusual difficulties well grappled with, and finally overcome. OCCASIONAL NOTES. PHARAOH’S HOUSE.