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AH Baird moved to new premises in
Lothian Street in 1895.
The British Journal of Photography gives
an interesting account of these premises:
Mr Baird of 37 and 39 Lothian Street , and 2 and 4, Brighton Street,
Edinburgh, writes:-
"You
will observe that I have changed my address. In my new premises the
accommodation is fully three times as much as I had at No 15.
The workshop is now under the same roof, a great convenience. I have
ample floor space, a feature I greatly lacked before.
There are six air-tight show windows (mahogany and plate glass) and a
wall fourteen feet long by nine feet high.
The office is screened off, and so situated that those sitting at any
of the desks can command a view of all who enter or leave any of the
departments.
On the ground floor are the following
departments:
-
Photographic materials (dark room, &c.)
- optical lanterns and accessories
- general optical goods
- office
- wet and dry chemicals
- educational apparatus
- workshop.
Downstairs are situated
- the
chemical apparatus department (glass, wood, metal)
- lantern demonstration rooms
- bottle stores
- packing room.
In outside cellars are kept
-
carboys of the mineral acids
(H2SO4,
HCl, HNO3)
- Winchester quarts of liq. ammonia
- glacial acetic acid and suchlike chemicals.
The dark room on the ground floor
measures eleven feet six inches by twelve feet and is twelve and a half
feet high.
It is lighted both by daylight and
gas lamp, which latter is arranged to supply white, orange and ruby light
as may be required.
There is ample bench room, and a
stoneware developing sink thirty inches by twenty inches and ten inches
deep.
The entrance to the dark room is
novel and very efficient. The appended sketch
(which was not illustrated in BJP)
shows that there are no doors, ingress and egress are effected without
disturbing those at work inside, and the ventilation is good.
The sides and roof of the entrance
are painted dead black. The walls and roof of the dark room itself
are of a chocolate brown colour.
For the coming winter season the
lantern demonstration room will be ready. The walls and roof are to
be the same colour as the dark room, while at one end will be a very white
and opaque screen.
Parties purchasing a lantern will
have its efficiency demonstrated; amateurs wishing to examine their
slides by projection will be accommodated on certain evenings for that
purpose.
Scientists interested in the lantern
polariscope, lantern microscope, &c. will have them fully explained and
demonstrated before purchase."
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