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majority of the deaf and dumb have been long excluded. Our own education never ceases; we are constantly receiving knowledge; building upon the foundations laid in our early education at school. Who is to do this for the deaf and dumb? How is it to be done? Why are they who need it so much the more on account of their affliction to be left without any instruction in a language (the only language—the language of signs)" understood by the people" themselves? This is a question which has long pressed for an answer, and that answer it has now received. It is within this period of ten years, which has engaged our attention to-night, that this further advantage to the deaf and dumb has been gained. There are new agencies at work for the benefit of the adult deaf and dumb in the large towns of the kingdom, which aim at placing them in the same position, with respect to intellectual advantages and religious privileges, as is held by ourselves. In London and Manchester, separate societies are supported for this very work. While I am addressing you here, Mr. Turner, of Manchester, is addressing a deaf and dumb audience (if you will forgive the misnomer), in that city-giving the opening lecture of a course on the Natural History of the Seasons, which Mr. Stainer is interpreting by signs to those whom the voice of the speaker can never reach.

Every Sunday, in London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow; in Leeds, Sheffield, Halifax and Hull; at Ashton, Birmingham, Belfast, Brighton, and here in Liverpool, the adult deaf and dumb in these several localities are assembled together, and religious services are conducted in the only mode which enables them to take an intelligent and willing part in them-by their language of signs. We have our own service at the Institution in Oxford Street every Sunday afternoon. We have our congregation of far more than a hundred souls, every one of whom is deaf, except my assistants and myself. To see us in that hour's service-that one hour in

the week, remember, which is, to heart and mind, the prospect and the retrospect of all the week besides, to the attentive group which gathers round us-to see us then and there, if any of you could see it, might shew you what was meant in yesterday's Courier by the apt title of " Silent Sermons ;" but there is one thing you never would see, and that is a sleepy congregation. It is impossible for me to say as much as might be said about this particular form of usefulness, on account of my own immediate connection with it, but I may mention that steps have been taken this very day for engrafting upon this a society for mutual help and benefit-for giving counsel and assistance, and affording to the members, in "trouble, sorrow, need, sickness or any other adversity," a friend and helper in their need.

And now, just briefly to recapitulate what has been said, I have shewn, I think

1. That we have more deaf and dumb persons to teach now than we had in 1851.

2. That more of the deaf and dumb are taught.

3. That the education they receive is sound and serviceable, inasmuch as its effect is to make them respect themselves, and make them honest and industrious; for we find

(a) That the paupers have diminished in number.

(b) The mendicants are almost non-existent.

(e) And criminals are entirely so.

4. That the number of those employed in remunerative occupations is much increased, and the area of employment considerably enlarged.

5. That the appliances of our Institutions are made to embrace far more of the life of the pupil than the school age. Infants are not too young, nor the aged too old, to be cared for and ministered to, by the agencies which were first called into existence for the instruction of youth, and are primarily and properly applied to that purpose.

To one who has devoted not much less than twenty-five years of the most active and energetic part of his life to this subject and to this class of the community, it is not without encouragement to be able to look back upon so much progress in which he has borne his part, and upon results which he has helped to gain; nor is it, may I add further, without much gratification that he has seen how willingly and sympathisingly you have listened to-night to the story he has had to tell.

THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY TO THE

YEAR 1844.

By J. T. Towson, Esq., F.R.G.S.

(READ 9TH FEBRUARY, 1865.)

IN attempting to trace the progress of the Science of Photography, it is necessary to notice several distinct classes of discoveries, the combination of which was necessary to bring about its present advancement.

The mechanical department had its origin at the latter part of the sixteenth century, when John Baptist Porta invented the camera, by means of which instrument the rays of light are arranged so as to produce a picture of the objects from which those rays are reflected. The science of Chemistry in various ways contributed to the production of a photographic picture. In the first place, the action of light produces a change in the affinities of the salts, or other materials of which the photographic preparation consists, for other chemical preparations afterwards employed. This is sometimes attended by a change of the colour of the material acted on by light, but not always so. In this latter case, the developing process is necessary, and, under all circumstances, the fixing process is required to render the picture permanent. The first chemical discovery leading to the science of Photography was made by Scheel in 1777, who found that the solar ray darkened the chloride of silver. In 1801 Ritter discovered that on the nitrate and other salts of silver a similar effect was produced.

Wedgwood two years afterwards applied the last-named discovery to photographic purposes. He applied the solution of salts of silver to leather, and by this process he obtained copies from paintings on glass. But he remarks that "No "attempts that have been made to prevent the uncoloured parts "of the copy or profile from being acted upon by light, have "as yet been successful. The images, formed by means of a camera obscura, have been found to be too faint to produce "in any moderate time an effect upon nitrate of silver."

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Although thus early in the present century advances were made in the science of Photography, it could not be said to exist as an art previously to 1839. It is true that Niepce, as early as 1814, produced pictures in the camera; and in 1829 Daguerre produced, on sheets of silver-plated copper, his pictures known by the name of Daguerreotype. But these discoveries remained hidden to the men of science and art until 1839, when the French Government purchased these

secrets.

Immediately on the publication of the discoveries of M. Niepce and M. Daguerre, several English men of science, who had pursued researches in the same direction, were encouraged to exert greater diligence. They received further stimulus to pursue these investigations from the fact that the English artist was deprived, by a patent, of the endowment which the French government had bestowed on "the world "of science and of art." This ultimately led to the English School of Photography, that has now superseded the discoveries of Daguerre.

The processes of Niepce and Daguerre brought to light two departments of Photography not previously known-the developing and fixing processes. By their methods the impression made whilst the tablet was in the camera was scarcely, if at all, visible, but was made so by the developing process.

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