In the year 1824 we hear of another Frenchman (now, remember this was a long while ago, in 1819, and we had no photographs yet, although you might call that a photograph (exhibiting the fern picture) yet it is not). In the year 1824 we hear of another Frenchman who was a scene-painter at a theatre in Paris, and he had been using the camera obscura to obtain pictures from nature from which to paint his scenery. That is to say he had a tent built something like that (drawing figure on blackboard) with a lens something like that that was part of a right angled prism, and this light coming from the view, the image was formed in here and spread out upon a table from which he could make a drawing. He used that and was much annoyed at the time it took to get those pictures. He was very impatient, like a great many other Frenchmen. He conceived the idea of “fixing these pictures” as he called them. He did not want to have the trouble of drawing them. He said: “If I could only find some way of getting that fixed on the surface without the trouble of drawing it it would be a great convenience.” This Frenchman was Louis Daguerre, really the father of photography. Now he worked independently for some time, when he met Niepse, the Niepse that had been working on bitumen and oil of lavender, and they formed a kind of partnership in 1829. Now, remember, 1819 was the time that Sir John Herschel had discovered hypophosphite of sodium and its action on these silver compounds. They formed a partnership in order to work out “scene pictures” as they called them. In the year 1833 Niepse died--got tired of the work pretty much, I suppose--and Daguerre continued the work. What his early experiments were we have very doubtful records of. Daguerre did not seem to keep very good records. In the year 1839, little more than fifty years ago, he communicated to the French government a method for making pictures in the camera upon metallic plates. In other words he divulged the secret of the first photographic picture we have--the daguerreotype. This was such a great success and such a wonderful discovery that the French government pensioned Daguerre for his life time, and by an agreement with them the process became public property on August 10th, 1839. Now I have the good fortune to have here to-night the daguerreotype apparatus. This is practically all the paraphernalia of the daguerreotype. First of all was the camera (and you must pardon the condition of it as it is almost forty years old). I know of no other complete set in the United States, so this is rather a relic, and it requires a good deal of care in handling it for it almost falls to pieces (showing the apparatus). Here is where the lens was put and in here is where the plate holder was put. They first had to fix the lenses in the ordinary way with ground glass. Then they had a plate-holder something like ours, that they put the metallic plate in. Now having fixed it, the next thing to do was to present to the