ABSTRACT
No other of nineteenth century inventions is at once so beautiful, so precious, so popular, so appreciated as photography. To the mind of an intelligent reader numberless instances will present themselves, not only of the utility of photography in the narrower sense of the term, but of its higher utility in ministering to the people love of the beautiful in art and in nature. The application of the camera obscura , and the fixing of the image so obtained, define the commencement of the art of photography. The art of photography has outstripped the science—in other words, the nature and laws of the chemical actions by which its beautiful effects are produced are not yet clearly understood, and some quite recent discoveries seem to show that the people have yet much to learn before a complete theory of the chemical action of light can be proposed.
