ed so as to cover some hundreds of square feet, and yet
preserves its sharpness to a degree which seems incredible.

The copying of documents to be used as evidence is another most important
application of photography. No scribe, however skilful, could reproduce
such a paper as we saw submitted to our fellow-workman in Mr. Black's
establishment the other day. It contained perhaps a hundred names and
marks, but smeared, spotted, soiled, rubbed, and showing every awkward
shape of penmanship that a miscellaneous collection of half-educated
persons could furnish. No one, on looking at the photographic copy, could
doubt that it was a genuine reproduction of a real list of signatures; and
when half a dozen such copies, all just alike, were shown, the conviction
became a certainty that all had a common origin. This copy was made with a
_Harrison's globe lens_ of sixteen inches' focal length, and was a very
sharp and accurate duplicate of the original. It is claimed for this new
American invention that it is "quite ahead of anything European"; and the
certificates from the United States Coast-Survey Office go far towards
sustaining its pretensions.

Some of our readers are aware that photographic operations are not
confined to the delineation of material objects. There are certain
establishments in which, for an extra consideration, (on account of the
_difficilis ascensus_, or other long journey they have to take,) the
spirits of the departed appear in the same picture which gives the
surviving friends. The actinic influence of a ghost on a sensitive plate
is not so strong as might be desired; but considering that spirits are so
nearly immaterial, that the stars, as Ossian tells us, can be seen through
their vaporous outlines, the effect is perhaps as good as ought to be
expected.

Mrs. Brown, for instance, has lost her infant, and wishes to have its
spirit-portrait taken with her own. A special sitting is granted, and a
special fee is paid. In due time the photograph is ready, and, sure
enough, there is the misty image of an infant in the background, or, it
may be, across the mother's lap. Whether the original of the image was a
month or a year old, whether it belonged to Mrs. Brown or Mrs. Jones or
Mrs. Robinson, King Solomon, who could point out so sagaciously the
parentage of unauthenticated babies, would be puzzled to guess. But it is
enough for the poor mother, whose eyes are blinded with tears, that she
sees a print of