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Document number: 6064
Date: 21 Dec 1847
Recipient: HOOKER William Jackson
Author: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Collection: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Collection number: EL 25.501
Last updated: 18th February 2012

Sir W J. Hooker

Athenæum Club <1>
21 Dec. 47

My dear Sir

If I had been sooner aware of your son’s <2> botanical expedition to India, I would before he left England have proposed to him to send home from India a Series of photographic delineations of the plants of that country. Such an idea may very likely have occurred to him, but if not, I do not think it too late even now to propose it as you will be having constant communication with him. Hitherto certain difficulties have stood in the way of making extensive use of this art for botanical purposes in actual travelling, namely

(1) that the prepared paper <3> which the traveller carried with him, only kept good 2 or 3 days; and that it was too much trouble to prepare more while travelling.

(2) that it was necessary to carry a box of chemicals with him

(3) that it was necessary to wash & fix the pictures with some care, which of course was too much trouble.

All these difficulties however I consider that I have got over, and have devised a method which offers the following facilities

(1) The stock of prepared paper is sent out ready prepared from England and keeps indefinitely –

(2) The only apparatus required is a copying frame in which the plant is pressed down upon the prepared paper<4>

(3) The only fixing process required at the time is simple washing the rest is to be done in England after return.

(4) Hence no chemicals are wanted.

The process is so easy that a Hindoo servant would learn it in a day. The great advantage is that plants of delicate structure or of very complicated foliage would be pictured while fresh; and on the same sheet of paper might be written the date, place where found, &c. thus avoiding mistakes wch are so apt to creep into a Herbarium.

Another advantage is with thick specimens – The room taken up by some plants is so considerable that the traveller forbears to collect them – in that case he may at least bring home a picture of them.

(5) another great advantage is that the pictures so obtained are at once ready for publication. They have only to be copied photographically. Thus the exact transcript of the original specimen would pass into the hands of many botanists –

N.B. the above process would not serve with a Camera for taking views &c. The picture of each plant would be obtained (with an Indian sun) in about a minute according to my opinion. Lieut. Oldfield one of the officers who returns to Borneo with Mr Brooke <5> is going as I understand to take photographic views in that island by my process. <6> May I take this opportunity of enquiring if you are acquainted with Mr Brooke, as I suppose that you are, and I wished to communicate with him thro’ some mutual friend?

Believe me Dr Sir Yours most truly
H. Fox Talbot


Notes:

1. The Athenæum and (London) Literary Chronicle, London.

2. Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911), botanist and traveller. He succeeded his father as Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.

3. Photogenic drawing paper.

4. The photogenic drawing process. Because of its relatively low sensitivity to light, it was more suited to contact printing than to use in the camera. However, being a print-out process, it had the advantage that the image was visible immediately after exposure, without further development.

5. Sir James Brooke (1803–1868), Raja of Sarawak.

6. The calotype process.

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