November 28, 1857
1 min read
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On page 390, Vol. XII, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, we published an article on this subject, which was copied by the London Illustrated News, among whose correspondents it has created much interest; one of them, however, sends us a copy of a letter from a Mr. Francis, dated April, 1839, which was published in a defunct periodical called the Magazine of Science and School of Art, describing the whole process, exactly similar to the one He made known. This is certainly a fact worth knowing, for we were of the opinion that our side of the Atlantic had produced the first practical process of photographing on wood. We now admit the English priority of invention, for we find that a specimen of lace, two flowers, the fool's parsley, and grass of Parnassus, had been engraved from a block thus prepared as early as 1839.
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