Today's brief text is followed with announcements regarding recently published articles by Peter Palmquist as well as a couple of new web sites of interest. On this day (October 13) in the year 1846, Mr. Armington took pen in hand and directed this letter to the Boston firm of Southworth and Hawes: - - - - - - Pawtucket, Mass. Oct 13th, 1846 Messrs. Southworth & Hawes, Gent, We have seen some pictures in Providence said to have been taken with "quickstuff" prepared and sold by you, which we like the appearance of very much. We wish you to send us a bottle of the same with the directions necessary for useing it. If we could produce the same results with it as those we saw in Providence should like to make use of it altogether. Please write us your lowest price for Scovills No. 1 medium plates. Also cheapest medium satin cases also velvet good article. yours respectfully H. Armington & Co. (Cited from a manuscript in the collection of Matthew R. Isenburg. Original errors of spelling/grammar maintained.) * * * * * * * * * I am happy to pass along information received from Peter Palmquist, who writes: "...I have been doing a series--Watkins, Vance, Taber, that all appear in a rather obscure journal called "The Argonaut - Journal of the San Francisco Historical Society." (P.O. Box 420569, San Francisco, CA 94142) Each of the essays occupy the entire journal and are well illustrated. They are: "Carleton E. Watkins: Master of the "Grand View" Vol. 6, No. 2 (Winter 1995/96) (48 pages) "Robert H. Vance: Pioneer Photographer" Vol. 8, No. 1 (Spring 1997) (36 pages) The TABER issue will probably appear in 1998 Peter also authored a two-page article, introductory in nature, "Daguerre's Legacy" in "Bancroftiana" (Newsletter of the Friends of the Bancroft Library) Fall 1997 (University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000) Peter continues "...I can provide copies of the first two at $15 plus $3 S & H. California Residents add 7 1/4% tax. The supply is quite limited...without counting, I would guess that I have less than 10 Watkins left and perhaps 20 of the Vance issue." * * * * * * * * I also want to mention a couple of web sites that may be of interest: "Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs 1851-1991" (Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress) "A Brief History of Panoramic Photography, Part 1" features a photographic copy of a now-lost five-plate daguerreotype panorama of San Francisco: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/pnhtml/pnhist1.html The Societe Francaise de Photographie now has a web site. The offering in their "Portfolio" is rather slim, but I'm nevertheless glad to have them web- accessible. The URL is: http://www.sfp.photographie.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------- 10-12-97