Captain W. de W. Abney, President of the section devoted
to physical science on Thursday, delivered an address on "The Action of Light," containing some remarks of popular interest. It is quite possible, he says, to produce a photograph in natural colours, indeed a silver plate with such colours on it has been repeatedly shown by experimental photographers, but it is impossible to produce a negative from which a print in natural colours can be taken. " It can be conceived that in a substance which absorbs all the visible spectrum, the mole- cules can be so shaken and sifted by the different rays that they sort themselves into masses which reflect the particular rays by which they are shaken; but it is impossible to believe that when this sifting has only been commenced, as it would be in the short exposure to which a camera picture is submitted, the substance deposited to build up the image by purely chemical means would be so obliging as to deposit in that the particular size of particle which should give to the image the colour of the nucleus on which it was depositing." Single pictures, however, if they could be more readily taken and preserved, would be objects of great curiosity and value.
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