The Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society (3 results)

Paperback. Condition: Poor. Pages tanned else in reasonably good condition internally, front cover missing, rear cover has a tear and small area of loss, staples rusting.

Paperback. Condition: Fair. Some page tanning, some page edges roughly cut, binding still firm; cover rather worn and tanned, somewhat fragile with loss, particularly the backstrip. Contents include: The Metallic Minerals of Cornwall; The preservation of ancient monuments; Celtic words in Cornish dialect II; Castle-an-Dinas & King Arthur; Remarks on the geology of Castle-an-Dinas, St Columb; The Manor of Arwenack; Glossary of Celtic words in Cornish dialect in use since 1800; Mining & Engineering Exhibition, Camborne, 1920, Catalogue.…

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. First edition. Format, octavo. 228mm. Physical description, [3] iv [1] vi - vii [1], [1] 2 - 303 [1], [3] 4 - 32, publishers catalogue (dated December 1, 1848.) Plates [1], tri-folding hand coloured frontispiece. Occasional sporadic generally light spotting in the text, the frontispiece is offset onto the title page. Few text illustrations. Publishers dark brown cloth backed boards, decorated in blind, the covers soiled, corners bumped with the boards visible, sometime rebacked with the original gilt lettered backstrip laid down. Light mustard yellow endpapers. Binders ticket of Remnant and Edwards on the rear pastedown, Overall, a near very good copy of a book which made important contributions to early photography. Robert Hunt (1808 - 1887) science writer and chemist, was born at Plymouth Dock, now Devonport in the county of Devon. He was educated in Penzance and Plymouth, then placed with a surgeon in London. ' Later he was appointed librarian and keeper of mining records at the Museum of Practical Geology and professor of mechanical engineering at the Royal School of Mines, London. He carried on numerous photographic and photochemical experiments and he was one of the founders of the London Photographic Society. The discovery by Robert Hunt (1844) that iron sulphate (vitriol) was suitable for the development of light pictures on iodide, bromide, and chloride of silver was of great importance for the future. It is well known that it was just this iron sulphate developer which brought 'wet collodion' photography, invented several years later, to such efficiency,' - (J.M. Eder, 'Hist. photography', 1945, pp. 325-326). He made the acquaintance of Sir J.F.W. Herschel ( 1792 - 1891 ) the astronomer who gave ' .kind and generous assistance, through every stage of these experimental inquiries' which he acknowledges in the final paragraph of the Preface. Hunt also wrote the first general treatise on photography - A Popular Treatise on the Art of Photography, Glasgow : R. Griffin and company, 1841.…