Further north still, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, there is another exhibition of "Arts and Manufactures," the chief photographic feature of which is a considerable display of "Swan's Carbon Prints," from several well-known negatives by Bedford and Robinson. The promise of this process is very great, and its commercial advantages were singularly demonstrated to me when visiting the printing establishment of Mr. Swan, which I happened to do on a dark and unfavourable day--one totally unfit for silver printing; and yet I saw several very beautiful carbon prints that had been produced that day, the rate of production being about eight to one over silver printing. As a proof of the certainty and commercial application to which Mr. Swan has reduced his beautiful process, I need only mention that he has undertaken the printing of two thousand copies of the celebrated picture of "The First General Assembly of the Church of Scotland," painted by D. O. Hill. This historical picture contains four hundred and fifty portraits: the negatives were taken from the original painting by Mr. Annan, photographer, Glasgow, and are 32 by 14 inches, and 24 by 9 inches; and Mr. Swan has to turn off one thousand copies of each within a given time. The publishers of the work give a guarantee to their subscribers that every print shall be of a high standard, for each one has to pass the examination of two competent judges. They also very justly pride themselves on being the very first to translate and multiply such noble works of art by a process "so beautiful, and, at the same time, _imperishable_." I saw several of the prints, both in process of development and complete; and anything more like rich, soft, and brilliant impressions of a fine mezzotint engraving I never saw, by any process of photography. Mr. Swan's arrangements for conducting the various parts of his process are very extensive and complete; and his mode of "developing and transferring" seems to be the very acme of perfection. But, as Mr. Swan is about to publish a work containing a full description of the process, with a beautiful specimen print as frontispiece, I will not anticipate him, or mar his own comprehensive account of the details of a process which he has brought to such a state of beauty and perfection, by an amount of patient perseverance and thoughtful application rarely exhibited or possessed by one individual.