.

* * * * *

The discovery of the virtues of a _Whitened Camera for Photography_,
announced in our last issue, has excited a remarkable sensation in
England. Mr. Kilburn, photographer to the Queen, who has experimented
upon the new plan with great success, is sparring with M. Claudet. The
point in dispute is the tendency of the improved method to weaken the
image. If the statements of those who claim to have succeeded are
reliable, it is evident that the ordinary form of camera may be
abandoned, and any image be received directly from the lens upon plates
or paper exposed to a diffused light.

* * * * *

M. LABORDE states, in a paper on Photography read before the Paris
Society for the Encouragement of Arts, that the nitrate of zinc may be
substituted for acetic acid in the preparation of photographs on paper;
that it increases the sensitiveness of the silver coating, and even
allows an alkaline reaction to the iodide of potassium bath.

* * * * *

A paper was lately read by Professor ABICH, before the Geographical
Society of London, on the _Climate of the Country between the Black and
Caspian Seas_. Professor Abich noticed the outlines of the extraordinary
variety of climate in the lands between these bodies of water, and
sketched the geological and orological structure of the country, which
he has minutely examined for several years by order of the Russian
Government. The whole tract is divided by three different lines of
elevation--viz. that of S. E. to N. W.--that of W. to E., and that of S.
W. to N. E. The isothermal line of 57 deg. and 59 deg., after traversing
the country between the Black and the Caspian Seas, inflects abruptly
toward the South again, reaching the Caspian. The mean temperature along
the shores of the two seas is for the year about equal; but the difference
of the temperature of the seasons is very great. Lenkoran, in the same
latitude as Palermo and Smyrna, with an annual temperature of 61 deg. and
63 deg., has the summer of Montpellier 76 deg., and the winter of
Maestricht and Turin, 35 deg. In Calchis, there is the winter of the
British Isles, 41 deg. and 42 deg., and the summer of Constantinople,
72 deg. and 73 deg. Tiflis, with the winter of Padua, 37 deg., has the
summer of Madrid and Naples, 74 deg. The extremes of Asiatic climate are
found on the volcanic highlands of Armenia.

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