drapery like an infant's dress, and a rounded something,
like a foggy dumpling, which will stand for a face: she accepts the
spirit-portrait as a revelation from the world of shadows. Those who have
seen shapes in the clouds, or remember Hamlet and Polonius, or who have
noticed how readily untaught eyes see a portrait of parent, spouse, or
child in almost any daub intended for the same, will understand how easily
the weak people who resort to these places are deluded.

There are various ways of producing the spirit-photographs. One of the
easiest is this. First procure a bereaved subject with a mind "sensitized"
by long immersion in credulity. Find out the age, sex, and whatever else
you can, about his or her departed relative. Select from your numerous
negatives one that corresponds to the late lamented as nearly as may be.
Prepare a sensitive plate. Now place the negative against it and hold it
up close to your gas-lamp, which may be turned up pretty high. In this way
you get a foggy copy of the negative in one part of the sensitive plate,
which you can then place in the camera and take your flesh-and-blood
sitter's portrait upon it in the usual way. An appropriate background for
these pictures is a view of the asylum for feeble-minded persons, the
group of buildings at Somerville, and possibly, if the penitentiary could
be introduced, the hint would be salutary.

The number of amateur artists in photography is continually increasing.
The interest we ourselves have taken in some results of photographic art
has brought us under a weight of obligation to many of them which we can
hardly expect to discharge. Some of the friends in our immediate
neighborhood have sent us photographs of their own making which for
clearness and purity of tone compare favorably with the best professional
work. Among our more distant correspondents there are two so widely known
to photographers that we need not hesitate to name them: Mr. Coleman
Sellers of Philadelphia and Mr. S. Wager Hull of New York. Many beautiful
specimens of photographic art have been sent us by these gentlemen,--among
others, some exquisite views of Sunnyside and of the scene of Ichabod
Crane's adventures. Mr. Hull has also furnished us with a full account of
the dry process, as followed by him, and from which he brings out results
hardly surpassed by any method.

A photographic intimacy between two persons who never saw each other's
faces (that is, in Nature's origi