The history of dry plate photography comes within the last ten or
fifteen years, and being so recent and so fully written up in
current photographic literature, space in this work will not be
taken for a full account of the rise and progress abroad and at home
of this wonderful improvement in photography, but instead will be
given some formulæ for the preparation of Gelatino Argentic
Emulsion, and the most approved methods of working it.
The shortening of the time of exposure for sittings in the studio
from one-tenth to one-twentieth of the time required for the old wet
plate process, at its best, has rendered the dry plate such a power
in the hands of the photographer as to have caused it to be almost
universally adopted in the studios of this country, and has
practically displaced the wet process in the field and for all
out-door photography. [p038]