TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9386, 9 April 1896, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

So frequently has the Photographing statement been made Nature's that photography in Colours. natural colours had been rendered possible, and so invariably has it proved lo be untrue that one approaches any fresh announcement to that effect with justifiable incredulity. Especially, we regret to say, is this the case when the nowe first appears in an American newspaper, which is where we get the announcement of the latest thing in photographic discoveries. The inventor, or discoverer, Dr Selle, is a countryman of Professor Rontgen, and hails from Brandenburg, where he practices as a physician. He has, we are told, contrived a photographic instrument which will reproduce the various colonrs of objects, persona and landscapes. In the photographs the colours lose none of their original brilliant shades. Connoisseurs speak with the greatest enthusiasm of Dr. Self's remarkable, work. He sent to a number of experts' for examination a beautiful photograph in which were presented the colours of rose bushes, a peacock, crazy quilts and some delicate tropical butterflies, which, on account of their sofb tint, drew the ap*oial arimiratioii of all who have seen them, lie, Selle'e dfipwatai dow not re v

quire any more time for tho perfecting of coloured photographs than is used for th colourless reproductions by ordinary cameras The iuventor keeps the most important factors of his device a secret. In an *ddreß to * photographic 3ooiety he admitted Uiat l»ia iustnimeut uoutained three very thi gelatine film* placed ab cquil disUiioej whicii all three rooeive-2 the same ;. ' pressious of objects within the ranee oi the camera, with this distinction, that on tiie iirso the various tints of the red O n the second of blue and on tho third 01 yellow were received, lie al«o stated thai the indigo colours deposited in hie iustru. ment were attracted iv the films, which causes the illumined spots to aaamne the desired colours. Immediately after th# operator had covered his leus the films were pressed together, and were then ready f or development and retouching. Dr. Sells it appears, has laboured daily for five ve&ra to perfect his iuveution, which is pronounced by all a brilliant success. For the present however, those who have not seen hie work will suspend judgment uutil they have had more authoritative information.

The aerolite »vhich on Moo. A Bolb day, February 10th, fa Ur «t from immediately over Madrid and The Blue, shooli the city like an earth. quake, was one of the bigger ! things in its way that ho occurred in Europe for a good many years. Following a common practice of such visitors, the' aerolite made il3 descent upon the city I early in the forenoon, and the fact that I the eky was cloudless aud the suu was shining strongly did not prevent the flash which accompanied its bursting atartliue the iuhabitants. Tin vivid flash was fol« lowed, after an interval of some seventy seco&da, by several terrific reports. The tremendous anduuexpected noise produced* panic among the residents, which wu in. creaeed by the shaking of all the building« aud the smashing of many windows. All that was visible iv the heavens was a peculiar blueiah white cloud bordered with red, which travelled eastwards, the last r'emaiug ot it beiug perceptible several hours later, The panic was general throughout the city and many people fainted, while the superstitious populace are said to have believed that the occurrence was siguiticant of the Divine wrath. Several fatal accidents were caused by the rush of frighteued workera in factories to the doors, and tho scholars in nearly all the schools aud colleges threw down their books and made their escape, many being injured in the frantic rush.There w&s great excitement at the Palace, . as it was feared that; a bomb had ex. ploded, aud the guards turned out, but the King's tutor, learning what had really happened, reassured theCourt. At tho Madrid Observatory the barometer was seen to ri«e and frill suddenly at the moment of thi phenomenon. The Directors of the Cbaer- * viitory stated that the aerolite had exploded some twenty miles above the earth. This shows that the meteor was of enormom size, us otherwise it would have shared the fate of the tens of thousands of meteors which daily fall towards the earth, only tij _'•' be utterly consumed by the heat generated .•:.' by their tremendous velocity through the atmosphere. Their speed is so greab that the friction is said to produce sufficient ' heat to consume them as if they were suddenly cast into a furnace heated" to three or four million degrees. The Madrid aerolite was seen at point* ■ three hundred miles distant from each other, and forty-six miles away the shook of the explosion was very strongly. \ felt. Fragments of greyish stoae, - etiil ~' warm, were picked up in Madrid, and one / gentleman had a very narrow escape, ~».' ■</ piece of the aerolite passing and ' charring, a newspaper he waa reading as W walked along. Still in comparison to whit ' might have happened the ill consequenoe* -. . of the explosion were very slight, and would ■ .-' have been very muoh lees had it not been for the unnecessary, but perhaps not unnatural, alarm of the iuhabitants of the , city.

Some Kueaian newspapers " A eeem to be rec6gaieing '-* Russian View that Eugland is not co, of the decadent as some would Colonies. perhaps like. We quoted come little time ago a paragraph from a prominent Moscow paper' -;- in which the writer ridiculed the braggart tone adopted by some of the Powers - towards Great; Britain, and pointed out . :;. what an immense influence she still wielded. - •, 'I And quite recently an Odessa paper, do* , -2 scribed as one of the foremost Russian ,\ political weekliee, published a long.articll on the relations between Eogland and her.: colonies, in which the writer compares thl'V: ! # \ colonising genius of England very favour '~'", ably with that of other European nations. : ; 'S "It is," he cays, "in the oontinuotu'-^.^ y loyalty and fidelity of nor colonies thai •~, >"- : the great and latent)' strength ot: X '■'[ . Great , Britain lies, and the wealth and. ;■/_ material prosperity of the colonies "^?_ ; themselves steadily increase, and it is for , '' %' the lack of these same characteristics and t ?\ attributes that such former great colonial. Powers ac Spain and Portugal have ;/ nearly the whole of their transoceanic po* r #^''./ sessions, and France and Ghrmany efcill hoH f '*:/ f their semi-barbaric and rebellious colonialV^ acquisitions by the terror of the sword only«"<vj p j>., Raferring to the " pessimistic prognostic '/^J-'' tions" often heard iv Rueeift and elsewhere { -f-l . that sooner or later the larger of the colonies will sever their connection - the Mother country, and leave her to herself against foreign aggression, the declares that " that vein is utterly cious." "We are frequently assured, f«' : f£%c"4 example," he adds, "that India « awaiting a favourable opportunity ** ■''/v break the iron fetters which bind her to chariot of Britannia. There is not a particle Y; J; r J of trustworthy evidence to support tbi» :*%? f view. In India there ia a free Press and *"-._.; - J i annual Congress, usually attended by.*.•-">.■?*''• thousand or fifteen hundred repreeentfttivet: of all olassee and castes, and yet onenev«^> ; ,. T heara the faintest demand made for th*:^; : liberation of Indiafrom British This ia probably rather too cheeifol * vi *%'fMpx of the matter. *The freedom of ttie B Indian prese eometimes borders on eeditioßj and there is undoubtedly a percentage of-' the population of India who would welconit [ H the upsetting of the Britieh raj, juss _ al t - :, *- there ia in these colonies on undoubted p«r' --:i "' centage, happily email, which looks forward -'■:; to the establishment of an Aastcalaeiaa public. The existence of people boldipft ~;,.„,,. these viewa does not alter the f»ct that un l ~ enormous majority rejoice in beingtnem , :' bere of the greatest empire the world ha* -'~ „ - ever seen, and would fight to the last & maintain ita integrity. , ■* ,;