In 1883, Captain Abney rendered a signal service to the members of the Photographic Society, and photographers in general, by publishing in the Journal of the Society a translation of Captain Pizzighelli and Baron A. Hubl's booklet on platinotype. After giving a _résumé_ of the early experiments with platinum by Herschel, Hunt, and others, the theory and practice of platinotype printing are clearly explained, and it was undoubtedly due to the publication of this translation that platinotype printing was very much popularised. In proof of the accuracy of this opinion, every following photographic exhibition showed an increasing number of exhibits in platinotype. No great novelty was brought into the world of photography in 1884, but there were signs of a steady advance, and an increasing number of workers with dry plates. I should not, however, neglect allusion to the publication of Dr. H. W. Vogel's experiments with eosine, cyanocine, and other kindred bodies by which he increased the sensitiveness of both wet collodion and gelatine plates to the action of the yellow rays considerably (_vide_ Journal of Society, May 30th). The Berlin Society for the Advancement of Photography acquired and published these experiments for the general good, and yet Tailfer and Clayton obtained patent right monopolies for making eosine gelatine plates in France, Austria, and England. This proceeding seems very much akin to the sharp practice displayed by Mr. Beard in securing a patent right monopoly in the Daguerreotype process which was _given to the world_ by the French Government in 1839. Germany very properly refused to grant a patent under these circumstances. On April 14th, 1885, Mr. Walter Bird read a paper at the meeting of the Photographic Society of Great Britain, "On the Photographic Reproductions of Pictures in the National Gallery," by A. Braun et Cie. I was present, and it appeared to me that the "effects" in some of the pictures exhibited were not produced by any chemical mode of translation of colour, but by some method of after-treatment of the negative which was more likely to be by skilled labour than by any chemical process. This belief induced me to read a paper at the next meeting--May 12th--"On the After-Treatment of Negatives," in which I showed what could be done both by chemical means and art-labour to assist photography in translating the monographic effects of colour more in accordance with the scale of luminosity adopted and adhered to by the most eminent engravers both in line and mezzotint.