TALBOT6559

The original has not been located. This is the version published in The Photographic Journal, v. 9 no. 141, 14 Jan 1864, p. 430.]

" Millburn Town,¹ Edinburgh,
Nov. 10, 1863.

"DEAR SIR,-

In reply to your letter, I beg to inform you that I did make a photograph of china, knives and forks, &c., disposed upon a round table, which is seen very obliquely in the photograph. It was an early attempt, about 1841 or 1842. ² The view was taken out of doors, on the grass-plot in the centre of the cloisters of Lacock Abbey. I have no doubt I have copies of it still left in my collection at Lacock.³

" Wedgwood, in his memoir of 1802 (Journal of the Royal Institution), ⁴ says that he had thought of the possibility of making photographic views with a camera, but that, on trying the experiment, he had found that no length of time sufficed to produce any visible impression. Therefore, if any ancient photographs should ever be discovered, they will not be his production.

"I take the opportunity of writing this note to send you a small specimen of my photographic engraving on steel which I made last week; it is quite untouched. It is a genuine view in Java - a ravine and small rivulet fringed with banana-trees. ⁵ As I have no assistant, my engravings are not as yet worth publishing; but I think that in the hands of an artist, the process would prove useful and effective. Pray accept the specimen. The number of copies that can be printed, before the plate deteriorates, is at least 5000.

"Believe me, "Yours very truly
"H. F. Talbot."

"

Dr. Diamond."