A very simple and interesting means of making photographs at night was introduced this year by Dr. Piffard, an amateur photographer of New York, and the extreme simplicity and efficacy of his method was surprising. For good portraiture it is not equal to the electric light, but for family groups, at home occupations or amusements, it is superior, and I have taken such groups with Piffard's magnesium flash-light, which no other means of lighting would have enabled me to produce. I have taken groups of people playing at cards, billiards, and other games in their own homes with the simplest of apparatus, the ordinary lens and camera, plus an old tea tray--but to obtain the best results, the quickest lens and the quickest dry plates should be employed, and I have always found the best position for the light to be on the top of the camera. 1888 is chiefly remarkable for the attempted revival of the stereoscope, and Mr. W. F. Donkin read an interesting and instructive paper on the subject, in which he endeavoured to account for its disappearance, explain its principles, and give an historical account of its early construction, and modern or subsequent improvements. As to its immense popularity thirty to thirty-five years ago, that was due to its novelty, and the marvellous effect of solidity the pictures assumed when viewed in the stereoscope; but it soon ceased to be popular when the views became stale, and people grew tired of looking at them; to keep up the interest they had to be continually buying fresh ones, and of this they soon got tired also; and when hosts saw that their guests were bored with sights so often seen, they put them out of sight altogether, and I fear that nothing will, for the same reasons, bring about a revival of the revolving or any other form of stereoscopes, for views. It is becoming much the same now with lantern slides--possessors and their friends grow weary of the subjects seen so frequently, and hiring instead of buying slides is becoming the practice of those who own an optical lantern.