Joseph Nicephore Mepce, a French chemist, one of the inventors of photographv, born in Chalon-sur-Sa6ne, March 7, 1765, died July 5, 1 333. After serving in the army for one year, he was obliged by severe illness to resign, and was appointed civil administrator of the district of Nice, which post he held from 1795 to 1801. Retiring then to private life, he devoted himself to the study of mechanics and chemistry, and as early as 1813 made a series of investigations, which he styled "heliographicresearches," to find the means of fixing images upon metallic plates by the agency of light, 'in 1824 he had partially succeeded in producing pictures, first on tin and polished glass, then on copper, and finally on silver, the surface having in each case been covered with a thin film of bitumen; but the process was very slow. In the mean time Daguerre had been engaged Upon the same problem, and in 1829 the two experimenters entered into a copartnership to improve the discovery, which, according to the terms of agreement, had been made by Niepce; but the latter died before it was perfected. - See Histoire de la découverte improprement nommée daguerreotype, by Isidore Niepce fils.