Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/593

 - s. iv. DEC. is. iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 491 this everyday word. The writer traces back the earliest stages of the art to Pliny, 100 B.C., and defines it as an art "dependent on the two sciences of chemistry and optics." J. H. Schulze, a German physician, is cited as having obtained in 1727 copies of written words by the action of light upon nitrate of silver. Thomas Wedgwood, fourth son of the great potter, wrote a paper upon making pictures by means of a camera and sensitive salt. Edited by Humphry Davy, the chemist, this paper appeared in 1802 in the Journal of the Royal Society. By means of the concen- trated light of the solar microscope Davy obtained about this period pictures upon paper coated with nitrate or chloride of silver, but was unable to fix. them. Joseph Nicephore Niepce, 1705-1833, developed what he termed " pictures pro- duced by light" in connexion with litho- graphy, afterwards known as heliography. His first camera was made out of a cigar box, and credit is given to him as being the real inventor of photography. He was the first to obtain permanent pictures, and to discover the principle of development. In 1827, during a visit to his brother Claude at Kew, he brought over to England speci- mens of his "light pictures," which he was anxious to exhibit to the Royal Society, but was prevented by the rule which requires a full explanation of the processes. In this year he took views of Kew Church and other places which are now deposited in the British Museum. His first success with the camera was in 1814. The collection of his apparatus is in the museum of his birthplace, Clialon- sur-Saone, where a statue is erected to his memory. Photogenic draiviny first occurred to Henry Fox Talbot in 1833, while he was sketching the Italian lakes, and the idea took six years to mature. See Philosoph. May., vol. xiv. p. 196, 1839. The Calotype process was discovered by Talbot in September, 1840. Photoglyphy is a process of engraving on steel by the action of light, introduced by Talbot in 1852. Photogram See ' Photograms of an Eastern Tour,1 published by Shaw, 1859, 8vo. Photographies. See ' Photographies of Paris Life,' published by Tinsley, 1862, 8vo. The Amateur Pftotoyranher also reveals photographist, photographists; fotografer, fotograjiit, vol. iv. p. Ill, 1886, and elsewhere phototypography and photometric. WM. JAGGAED. 139, Canning Street, Liverpool. DOVER PIER (10th S. .iv. 387, 451).—With reference to DR. MURRAY'S query respecting the pier at Dover, I have compared the events and dates there mentioned with the records of Dover, and find that the Emperor Charles V. landed at Dover 26 May, 1522. There was existing at that time at the western extremity of Dover Bay a head, of blocks of chalk and piles, called a pier, con- structed in 1495 by John Clark, master of the Dover Maison Dieu. by means of a sub- sidy granted by Henry VII. Soon after 1522 that head was much damaged by storms, and an appeal was made to Henry VIII. to assist in strengthening and extending that pier. The king granted 5001. for that purpose, and the works commenced in 1533 ; but about two years later the king himself took the work in hand, spending aoout 60.000Z. in an endeavour to build out seaward a stone pier, the foundations of which he laid. They still remain between the Admiralty Pier and the Prince of Wales's Pier, nearly uncovered at low-water spring tides ; they are called the Mole Rock, and were formerly called "the King Foundation." The great expenditure of Henry VIII. was of little value, the har- bour work of real utility being done in the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth. JOHN BAVINGTON JONES. DR. MURRAY objects to " French pierre, a stone"; I would suggest a consideration of the Latin pareo, as in "appear." The idea is of a harbour extension, made visible, whereas the mole or breakwater is more at sea level. Recently the Channel steamer could not cling to the new pier, but had to recross for shelter, the extension being so far from the land. A. HALL. It appears not impossible that pier may come from Latin pede=foot Compare apeadeira, apeadeiro, apeadoiro in Portuguese; and apeadtro in Castilian. The last is trans- lated in the dictionary by M. Seoane as follows : " A block or step, with the aid of which a person mounts a horse or mule." In the same book ''Apear el rio" is rendered "To wade or ford a river." If this does not afford a light upon the etymon, perhaps we must look at some medieval French word meaning a place for paying toll on embark- ing or disembarking : or at one of the nau- tical senses of the verb to " pay." E. S. DODGSON. ISAAC JOHNSON, OF MASSACHUSETTS (10th S. iv. 227, 314).—This shadowy personage (to whom has been paid the closest attention of the Massachusetts annalist, and who was the first white man, or rather Englishman, to be