THE RE-CUTTING OF THE KOH-I-NOOR. Upon the gem falling into the hands of its present possessors, enormous and ex HIS celebrated gem, of which the aggerated ideas of its value (under all in a difficult matter Great Exhibition of last year, is now in progress of transformation, an operation which it is hoped and believed will develop its beauties to a greater extent than hitherto has been the case. Before proceeding to detail the process, of which we were witness on yesterday sennight, a brief outline of its history may be given. The Koh-i-noor was found in the mines of Golconda about the year 1550, and was presented by the Viceroy of the Deccan to the Great Mogul. The diamond subsequently became the property of Pandoor Rajah, Chief of all India, Cabul, and Cachmere, from whom it was taken by Timur, and subsequently from Mohammed Shah by Nadir Shah. On the assassination of Nadir Shah, it was seized, with his treasury, by his general, Ahmeed Shah, who took it to his native country, Affghanistan, of which he became Sovereign. His descendant, Shah Sooja, when obliged to fly his country, took it with him, and threw himself upon the protection of Runjeet Singh: the latter, taking advantage of this circumstance, by a little torture skillfully applied to the mind and body, induced its surrender into his own possession. On Runjeet's death, it was inherited by Dhuleep Singh. The recent war in Mooltan, and disturbances in the Punjaub, induced the British resident at Lahore to secure as a hostage the person of the boy-king Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, and at the same time to seize the Koh-inoor. Upon the defeat of the Sikhs it was yielded to the British Crown, by special clause in the treaty then concluded. The Hon. W. C. Osborne, in his work, "The Court and Camp of Runjeet Singh," gives the following graphic description of the mode in which this famous diamond was worn by its equally famous possessor by right of conquest, Runjeet Singh "Cross-legged upon a golden chair, dressed in simple white, wearing no ornaments but a single string of enormous pearls round the waist, and the celebrated Koh-i-noor or Mountain of Light on his arm, (the jewel rivaled, if not surpassed, in brilliancy by the glance of fire which every now and then shot from his single eye, as it wandered restlessly round the circle,) sat the Lion of Lahore." | were formed, and even in the Exhibition Catalogue the lustrous cynosure was set down as representing a (fictitious) value of two millions sterling. Professor Tennant, however, has, upon a careful calculation, arrived at the more moderate estimate of £276,768, as the market value, supposing it to be perfect in every respect. A minute examination, however, showed that the Koh-i-noor was not perfect, arising from the unskillful mode in which it had been dealt with, both in the original cutting and subsequent setting. Το remedy these defects was desirable. How? was the question. Professor Tennant and the Rev. W. Mitchell were consulted, and, in an elaborate report, were favorable to the proposed re-cutting as a means of improvement, but threw out doubts as to its complete practicability, unaccompanied with danger to the integrity of the stone. Upon this report Messrs. Garrard, of Panton-street, Haymarket, the Crown jewelers, were instructed to obtain the opinion of practical diamond-cutters, and with this view those gentlemen consulted Mr. G. Coster, of Amsterdam; the trade of diamond-cutting having entirely left this country, and being at present chiefly confined to Holland. This practical lapidary, while not disputing possible danger from various causes, expressed his belief that, with the requisite care and skill of experienced artists, it might be avoided. These reports were duly considered, and eventually Messrs. Garrard were instructed to execute the work of re-cutting the diamond, and converting it from its present imperfect shape to that of an oval brilliant, with corresponding alterations of the two smaller diamonds, its accompanying pendants. Two skilled workmen were brought over from Holland, and a steamengine was erected, to assist in the intended operation. An engine of from two to four horse power was erected under the direction of Mr. Joshua Field, of the firm of Maudslay, Sons, and Field, and yesterday sennight the apparatus was for the first time practically employed; on which occasion his Grace the Duke of Wellington, who had evinced great interest in the undertaking, honored Messrs. Garrard's factory with his presence, and inaugurated the work by himself cutting the first facet, and thus commencing an operation which it is expected will occupy some months. We will now endeavor to explain the modus operandi, which, from its novelty in this country, cannot fail to be interesting. In a copper vessel or cup, called the dop, is melted a quantity of solder-a mixture of tin and lead—which is allowed to cool until it attains a certain consistence, when by means of tongs the diamond is embedded in the metal until entirely covered with it, except the salient angle intended to be polished. The scaife is the next piece of machinery brought into operation. This consists of a wheel horizontally revolving in the center of the lapidaries' table, at a velocity of upward of two thousand revolutions per minute, upon which the exposed portion of the diamond is placed by means of forceps fixed to the table, and steadied by the pressure of heavy weights of lead. The rapidly revolving wheel or scaife is kept constantly supplied with diamond dust, the only known medium for cutting diamonds; and the intense heat generated by the friction, which if not guarded against would speedily melt the metal bed in which the stone is deposited, requires that the jewel should be frequently cooled in a pan of tepid water, which is kept at hand for that purpose. From the anxious care and cautious skill required in the performance of these operations may be inferred the length of time which the undertaking is likely to occupy-an operation, the parallel of which has not occurred in Europe for at least a century.—Illustrated London News. York, and of an English lady. His feeble infancy and delicate youth were passed in the neighborhood and in the city itself, "which at that time," says an American, "was little like a metropolis, or even a city of Europe. You still found an ingenuous morality in this growing city, where all the pleasures of a progressing prosperity, all the enjoyments of an internal well-being, were combined with the pleasant liberty and easy pleasures of an almost country life. The advantageous situation of the port caused an affluence of dollars to the coffers of the merchant; for the inhabitants of other parts of the province had not yet come to colonize this fortunate spot, and to demand their share of its profits. The felders of the city saw the falling of the commercial manna, and busied themselves rather in enjoying the present, than in thinking of the future. They had not yet recognized the necessity of habituating their children to the discipline of labor and prudence. The cupidity engendered by gain, the close egotism of local concurrence, had not yet dried their hearts. You saw in these rapidly-enriched families, patriarchal manners: they believed in domestic happiness; they did not resign their children for ten hours a day to the mercenary care of the pedagogue; they feared the suffocating atmosphere of the school-room; they found time to bring them up themselves, and then sent them into the free air of the fields, and the neighborhood of New-York was admirably adapted to this sort of education. A few minutes' walk brought the city youth out into green fields-under fresh shadows-to the brink of fair streams, which, covered in the winter with thick ice, invited the skaters to rival the exploits of their Dutch ancestors. The city of New-York possessed the most picturesque site; Edinburgh alone, in Europe, could compare with it. Now, its rustic environs no longer exist. Brick houses replace the verdure; the mason has chased away the gardener; a railroad has destroyed even the fresh grots of Hoboken." What Irving has of inmost and truest, comes from these almost Dutch souvenirs of his childhood. He went no farther than the flowery isle of Manhattan, or the neighboring shores. His imagination was cradled in citizen and peaceful memories. Never the plumes that fall from the goldenrobed flamingo, nor of the desert-flower, nor of the columns of wild rock which edge the Mississippi. What grace and nobleness he has, belonged to this primitive and simple sphere. His youth was passed in the midst of an active, commercial population; nor had he longed for living brooks which murmur through the heart of antique woods, nor for the deer that crosses them, nor for the colonist's lodge, nor for lakes with gleaming waves. He early saw himself surrounded with small provincial rivalries; and his delicate observation, worthy of Teniers and of Wouvermans, was already in action. high coloring and emphasis; but the research is conscientious, and the style brilliant. Returned among his compatriots, who had made him their ambassador to Spain, he undertook a voyage throughout the United States. The Falls of Niagara, the Lakes of Champlain and Erie, the banks of the Ohio, the majestic course of the Mississippi, formed the theater of his first excursions. Then, with a troop of mounted pioneers, he penetrated into the territories of the warlike Pawnees, explored the prairies and forests, chased the wild horse and the buffalo, slept in the open air by the campfire or in the Indian wigwam. This expedition inspired a charming book. The recent "Life of Mohammed and his Successors," is not a very clever production for so lovable and gracious a talent.— Philarete Chasles. "The city," says a cotemporary, "fifty years ago, exhibited the singular spectacle of various races, distinct in origin, character, physiognomy, struggling for a puerile preeminence. Time has done justice to those very little quarrels, and showed us their innocent absurdities in relief. All those shades are now confounded into one: but, in that day, the Dutch American stuck to his jargon as to a holy thing; his bitterness of a vanquished race, it is true, being much softened by his natural good temper. With the Dutch mingled the French Protestants, banished by the edict of Nantes, and tempered the Dutch phlegm with Gallic vivacity. Then came the gentry and cavaliers of old England, proud of their genealogy, and always citing their ancestors, who had come to the once Dutch colony, and transformed it into a British THE RAPIDITY OF THOUGHT IN DREAMprovince, given by Charles II. to his ING.-A very remarkable circumstance, brother, the Duke of York. You remark- on an important point of analogy, is to be ed, too, the New-Englander, the real found in the extreme rapidity with which American, distinguished by his intelligent the material changes on which the ideas activity, and already beginning with the depend are excited, in the hemispherical Batavian that strife which has terminated ganglia. It would appear as if a whole in the nearly total disappearance of the series of acts, that would really occupy a patronymics of old burgomasters from the long lapse of time, pass ideally through commercial streets. Finally, the last, the the mind at one instant. We have in least numerous of this population, but, at dreams no true perception of the lapse of the same time, the most important, by their time—a strange property of mind; for, if acquired wealth, and mercantile influence such be also its property when entered -the Scotch-formed a clan, canny, cal- into the eternal disembodied state, time culating, enterprising, and joining to their will appear to us eternity. The relations habits of knowledge and economy, hospit- of space as well as of time are also anniable manners, and a love of good eating." hilated; so that, while almost an eternity The most lovable works of Irving are is compressed into a moment, infinite those in which the delicate observation of space is traversed more swiftly than by his youth is naïvely set forth. His satiric real thought. There are numerous illus"History of New-York, by Diedrich trations of this principle on record. A Knickerbocker,”—a parody on the Dutch gentleman dreamed that he had enlisted minuteness and the microscopic importance as a soldier, joined his regiment, deserted, claimed for themselves by the very little, was apprehended, carried back, tried, con-the "Sketch Book," "Bracebridge Hall," demned to be shot, and at last led out for and the "Tales of a Traveler,"-works execution. After all the usual preparwhich will remain, and which, indeed, are ations, a gun was fired; he awoke with refined continuations of the style of Ad- the report, and found that a noise in the dison, constitute what one may call adjoining room had, at the same moment, Irving's first manner. Criticism had ac- produced the dream and awakened him. cused him of feebleness. He wished to A friend of Dr. Abercrombie's dreamed rise higher, and wrote the "History of that he crossed the Atlantic, and spent a Christopher Columbus," and that of his fortnight in America. In embarking on companions; that of the "Conquest of his return, he fell into the sea, and, Granada;" and, at last, the “Alhambra." | awakening in the fright, found that he had In this second manner, there is a little too not been asleep ten minutes. PHOTOGRAPHY-ITS ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND PRESENT STATE. THE HE importance of Photography, whether we consider it simply in its relation to art, or as an aid to those investigations which promise to advance our knowledge of those radiant forces which perform most important offices in regulating the physical constitution of organic matter, is so great, that we feel some historical notices of its progress cannot be otherwise than interesting to our readers. The slow advancement of abstract truth is exemplified in a very remarkable manner in the department of science which is devoted to the consideration of the physical phenomena of the sunbeam. It is tolerably certain that in the sixteenth century the darkening of horn silver (fused chlorid of silver) was observed by the alchemists; but it was not until the eighteenth century that any examination of the phenomenon was made. Even then the influence of light on the crystallization of salts first attracted attention, and memoirs on this subject were published by Petit in 1722, by Chaptal in 1788, and by Dizé in 1789. In 1777, Scheele, the celebrated chemist of Sweden, writes:-"Fix a glass prism at the window, and let the refracted sunbeams fall on the floor. In the colored light put a paper strewed with luna cornua, and you will observe that this horn silver grows sooner black in the violet ray than in any of the other rays." Senebier, in 1790, ascertained that this white salt of silver darkened in the violet ray in fifteen seconds to a shade which required the action of the red ray for twenty minutes. In 1801, Ritter, of Jena, demonstrated the existence of rays beyond the spectrum, having no illuminating power, but possessing active chemical properties. A similar set of researches were undertaken by Dr. Wollaston about the same time, which also proved the remarkable differences existing between the differently colored rays. These researches led the way to the experiments of Wedgwood, the celebrated porcelain manufacturer of Etruria, in Staffordshire, which, beyond all dispute, must establish him as the first photographic artist. From the journal of the Royal Institution of 1803 we copy the title of Mr. Wedgwood's memoir, and a few of his remarks, with the notes of Sir Humphrey Davy: "An account of a Method of Copying Paintings upon Glass, and of making Profiles by the Agency of Light upon Nitrate of Silver; with Observations by Humphrey Davy." A solution of nitrate of silver spread on white paper or white leather was the photographic material employed; and he remarks:-" The alterations of colors take place more speedily in proportion as the light is more intense. In the direct rays of the sun, two or three minutes are sufficient to produce the full effect; in the shade several hours are required; and light transmitted through different colored glasses, acts upon it with different degrees of intensity. When the shadow of any figure is thrown upon the prepared surface, the part concealed by it remains white, and the other parts speedily become dark. For copying paintings on glass, the solution should be applied on leather; and in this case it is more readily acted on than when paper is used. After the color has been once fixed on leather or paper, it cannot be removed by the application of water, or water and soap, and it is in a high degree permanent. Besides the applications of this method of copying that have just been mentioned, there are many others; and it will be useful for making delineations of all such objects as are possessed of a texture partly opaque and partly transparent. The woody fibre of leaves, and the wings of insects, may be pretty accurately represented by means of it; and in this case it is only necessary to cause the direct solar light to pass through them, and to receive the shadows upon prepared leather." Sir Humphrey Davy adds, " The images formed by means of a camera obscura have been found to be too faint to produce in any moderate time an effect upon the nitrate of silver. To copy these images was the first object of Mr. Wedgwood in his researches on this subject. In following these processes I have found that the images of small objects produced by means of the solar microscope may be copied without difficulty on prepared paper. In comparing the effects produced by light upon muriate of silver with those produced upon nitrate, it seemed evident that the muriate was the most susceptible. Nothing but a method of preventing the unshaded parts of the delineation from being colored by exposure 66 PHOTOGRAPHY-ITS ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND PRESENT STATE. 447 to the day is wanting to render this pro- and to which I give the name of Heliogcess as useful as it is elegant." raphy, consists in producing spontaneously, by the action of light, with gradations of tints from black to white, the images re No further investigation of the subject appears to have been made for many years. The failure on the part of Wedg-ceived by the camera obscura." He then wood and Davy was due entirely to the describes his process, and says:-"The want of these chemical agents, which were plate thus prepared may be immediately afterward employed as the fixing materi- submitted to the action of the luminous als. Hyposulphate of soda was not dis- fluid in the focus of the camera. But' covered by Sir John Herschel until 1819, even after having been thus exposed a when he at once detected and described length of time sufficient for receiving the the habitudes of the salts of silver in con- impression of external objects, nothing is nection with hyposulphuric acid. Iodine apparent to show that these impressions was not known before 1812, when it was exist. The forms of the future picture discovered by Courtois, a manufacturer of remain still invisible. The next operasaltpetre at Paris; and bromine was a yet tion, then, is to disengage the shrouded later discovery, by M. Balard, of Montpe- | imagery, and this is accomplished by a lier. Without these agents photography | solvent." could not have advanced beyond the point at which Wedgwood and Davy left it. In 1814 M. Niepce, of Chalons, on the Saône, turned his attention to the chemical agency of light, his object being "to fix the images of the camera obscura;" and he discovered the peculiar property of solar radiations in altering the solubility of several resinous substances. By spreading bitumen on a glass or metal plate, and placing this in the camera obscura, Niepce found that in five or six hours a dormant image was impressed on the plate, which was rendered evident by placing the prepared material in any solvent of the bitumen or resin employed. This development of a dormant image has been patented as though it were a new discovery of Mr. Fox Talbot, whereas it was known exactly twenty years before he commenced an experiment on the subject. Niepce resided at Kew in 1827; and still pursuing the subject, he produced many of these pictures, some of which are still in the possession of his friends in this country. They possess much of the air of daguerréotypes, but are necessarily imperfect as pictures when compared with the photographs which we are now producing. In 1824, Daguerre commenced his researches, employing, as Wedgwood had, the nitrate and chlorid of silver. In 1826, Niepce and Daguerre became acquainted, and they pursued their inquiries together; and in 1829, Niepce communicated his processes to Daguerre, from which communication we must make a few extracts of great importance in the history of photography : In 1829, iodine was first employed by Niepce and Daguerre to "black the resinous plates on which the heliographic pictures were obtained." Daguerre appears, however, to have noticed some peculiarity in the action of the light on silver plates, as Niepce, in a letter to him, speaks of "a decoction of thlapsi (shepherd's purse), fumes of phosphorus, and particularly of sulphur, as acting on silver in the same way as iodine, and that caloric produced the same effect by oxydizing the metal, for from this cause proceeded in all these instances this extreme sensibility to light." Niepce died in 1833; and in January, 1839, Daguerre's great discovery was announced, and specimens were shown to the élite of Paris. In July following, a bill passed the Chamber of Deputies securing to M. Daguerre a pension for life of 6,000 francs, and to M. Isidore Niepce, the son of the originator of Heliography, a pension of 4,000 francs, as the purchase price of the secret of the process of Daguerréotype-for the glory of endowing the world of science and of art with one of the most surpassing discoveries that honor their native land." "This discovery France has adopted; from the first moment she has cherished a pride in liberally bestowing it—a gift to the whole world." Such was the language of M. Arago, and we find M. Duchâtel saying, “the invention does not admit of being secured by patent, for as soon as published all might avail themselves of its advantages." Notwithstanding these assertions, made no doubt with the utmost honesty, by these distinguished Frenchmen, we find M. Da "The discovery which I have made, guerre trafficking in the English patent |