_Sealing-wax for Baths._--I notice in your answers to correspondents (No.
176., p. 274.), that you inform H. HENDERSON that glass may be cemented for
baths with sealing-wax. May I recommend to H. HENDERSON the use of gutta
percha, instead of glass, for that purpose? Sheet gutta percha is now very
cheap, and the baths are most easily made. I have had one of my own making
in constant use since last July, having never emptied it but twice, to
filter the nitrate of silver solution. It is not liable to breakage. The
joinings are much less liable to leakage. And when it is necessary to heat
slightly the silver solution (as it has been during the late cold weather),
I have adopted the following simple plan: Heat moderately a stout piece of
plate glass; plunge it into the bath; repeat the operation according to the
size of bath. It is very useful to make a gutta percha cap to cover over
the bath when not in use; it protects it from dust and evaporation, and
saves the continual loss of materials arising from pouring the solution
backwards and forwards. For home-work I have reduced {315} the whole
operation to a very simple system. My bath, hypo-soda, developing fluid (of
which, as it keeps so long, I make ten ounces at a time), are always ready
in a small closet in my study. These I arrange on my study-table: a gutta
percha tray, a brass levelling-stand upon it, a jug of soft water, and
half-a-dozen small plates to place my pictures on, after treating them with
the hypo-solution (for, to save time, I do not finish washing them until I
have done all the pictures I require). All these things I can prepare and
arrange in less than ten minutes, and can as easily return them to their
places afterwards.
With regard to MR. MABLEY'S process, described in "N. & Q.," No. 176., p.
267., as I am but a beginner myself, and have much to learn, I should be
sorry to condemn it; but I should fear that his pictures would not exhibit
sufficient contrast in the tints. Nor do I see the advantage the pictures
would possess, if they did, over positives taken by our process. We
amateurs in the country labour at present under great disadvantages, some
of which I think the Photographic Society will remove. I am myself quite
unable to form an idea what the collodion pictures done by first-rate
photographers are like. All the positives done by amateurs in this part of
the world, and developed by pyrogallic acid, which I have seen, present a
dirty brown hue, by no means pleasing or artistic; and I have seen but very
few, either developed by pyrogallic acid or protosulphate of iron, free
from blemishes. I think if we were to act upon the suggestion made in "N. &
Q." some time back, and send the editor a specimen of our performances, it
would be a slight return for his endeavours in our behalf; and he would, I
doubt not, honestly tell us whether our pictures were tolerable or not. I,
for one, shall be very happy to do so.