The tank is placed close under the eaves of the building, so as to gain
as much head of water as is desirable. From near its bottom a pipe
terminating in a stopcock _k_, Fig. 38, passes into the Laboratory.
In the northeast corner of the room, and under the tap is a sink for
refuse water and solutions, and over which the negatives are developed.
It is on an average about twelve feet distant from the telescope. In
another corner of the room is a stove, resembling in construction an
open fireplace, but sufficient nevertheless to raise the temperature to
80° F. or higher, if necessary. As a provision against heat in summer,
the walls and roof are double, and a free space with numerous openings
above is left for circulation of air, drawn from the foundations.
The roof is of tinplate, fastened directly to the rafters, without
sheathing, in order that heat may not accumulate to such an extent
during the day as to constitute a source of disturbance when looking
across it at night.
For containing negatives, which from being unvarnished require
particular care, there is at one side of the room a case with twenty
shallow drawers each to hold eighteen. They accumulate very rapidly,
and were it not for frequent reselections the case would soon be
filled. On some nights as many as seventeen negatives have been taken,
most of which were worthy of preservation. Not less than 1500 were made
in 1862 and ’63.
b. _Photographic Processes._
In photographic manipulations I have had the advantage of my father’s
long continued experience. He worked for many years with bromide and
chloride of silver in his photo-chemical researches (Journal of the
Franklin Institute, 1837), and when Daguerre’s beautiful process was
published, was the first to apply it to the taking of portraits (Phil.
Mag., June, 1840) in 1839; the most important of all the applications
of the art. Subsequently he made photographs of the interference
spectrum, and ascertained the existence of great groups of lines _M_,
_N_, _O_, _P_, above _H_, and totally invisible to the naked eye (Phil.
Mag., May, 1843). The importance of these results, and of the study of
the structure of flames containing various elementary bodies, that he
made at the same time, are only now exciting the interest they deserve.
In 1850, when his work on Physiology was in preparation, and the
numerous illustrations had to be produced, I learnt microscopic
photography, and soon after prepared the materials for the collodion
process, then recently invented by Scott Archer. We produced in 1856
many photographs under a power of 700 diameters, by the means described
in the next section.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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