_A Prize for the best Collodion._--Your "Hint to the Photographic Society"
(Feb. 25) I much approve of, but I have always found more promptness from
individuals than from associated bodies; and all photographers I deem to be
under great obligations to _you_ in affording us a medium of communication
before a Photographic Society was in existence. During the past month your
valuable articles, from some of our most esteemed photographists, show that
your pages are the agreeable medium of publishing their researches. I would
therefore respectfully suggest that you should yourself offer a prize for
the best mode of making a good useful collodion, and that that prize should
be a complete set of your valuable journal, which now, I believe, is
progressing with its ninth volume. You might associate two independent
names with your own, in testing the merits of any sample supplied to you,
and a condition should be that the formula should be published in "N. & Q."
Your observations upon the manufacturers of paper, respecting the intrinsic
value of a premium, are equally applicable to this proposition, because,
should the collodion prepared by any of the various dealers who at present
advertise in your columns be deemed to be the most satisfactory, your
sanction and that of your friends alone would be an ample recompense. I
would also suggest that samples sent to you should be labelled with a
motto, and a corresponding motto, _sealed_, should contain the name and
address, the name and address of the successful sample _alone_ to be
opened: this would effectually preclude all preconceived notions
entertained by the testing manipulators who are to decide on the merits of
what is submitted to them.