The Hillotype

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Professor Morse, the inventor of the magnetic telegraph, publishes a long letter in the Mational Intelligencer of the 8th, sustaining IJlr. Hill's claim of having discovered the mode of fbring the colors in daguerreotypes. The letter is dated Oct. 4tti; and Mr. Morse, who, as an accomplished artist and colorist himself, would be presumed a competent judge, says that he has seen twenty specimens of Mr. Hill's colored daguerreotypes.— The most of these were, he says, like all those of M. St. Victor, "copies of colored engravings." They were taken by the camera, and not, as has been reported, " mere transfers of colored prints;" but all were not " copies of colored engravings." Two were exquisitely beautiful portrait heads fromlile, and one a full length of a child from life. One a landscape view from nature, principally buildings which, although imperfect in parts, served from that very circumstance to verify to me the genuineness of the discovery. The colors in Mr. Hill's process are so fixed that the most severe rubbing with a buffer only increases their brilliancy, and no exposure to ' light has as yet been found to impair their brightness. They are produced in twenty .seconds. Mr. Hill has been suffering from hemorrhaga, which has interfered with his labors, but Morse says:— Mr. Hill lias made a great discovery. It is not perfected. There is much yet to be done to make it perfect, but lie is in advance of all others, and has, within the year, successfully overcome two of his difficulties. Both yellow and white Were defective in quality and truth a year ago—both are now comparatively obtained. There are other colors which, in order to make them so true as to satisfy an artistes mind, will require yet further experimenting. Is not this reason enough for not at present giving his process to the public 1 Who has a right to demand him to reveal it to the puWic now? Who, indeed, has a right to demand it at any time?— [Philadelphia Ledger. [Nobody, so far, as we know, has ever demanded of Sir- Hill, to reveal his alledged discovery; the public have a right to demand proofs of a discovery from a man who has publicly professed to have made it. This is all the public has done to Mr. Hill, and it would be more to the credit of himself and such friends as Mr. Morse, to produce public proofs of this discovery. It is at least two or three years since the discovery was pretended to be made. Nobody wants the process, bull we want facts, and not talk about it.

Scientific American Magazine Vol 8 Issue 6This article was published with the title “The Hillotype” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 8 No. 6 (), p. 48
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican10231852-48

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