192 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Sept. 8. 1855. 



with the crotala 5n her left hand ; also with the 

 laurel branch in her right hand and on her right 

 shoulder, and wearing a turreted mural crown. 

 (Winekelmann, as above ; conf. Montfaucon, 

 vol. i.) The oak was sacred to her (Schol. ad 

 ApoUon. Rhod, i. 1124.). 



Nothing in the Sibylline verses recorded indi- 

 cates that they were the priestesses of Cybele, an 

 entirely gratuitous assumption on the part of 

 Faber. (See remarks on Faber by his quon- 

 dam teacher, J. D. Michaelis ; Mosaisches Recht, 

 Smith's translation, vol. i. pp. 142 — 152.) This 

 Cabiri of Faber can scarcely be deemed of any 

 authority at the present time. He has scarcely a 

 word on Cybele or Rhea, either in this work or in 

 his Pagan Idolati-y. 



Mr. Fox Talbot, following the Thracians in 

 honouring Rhea-Hecate, has confounded Hecate 

 with Cybele. But Hecate was the moon before 

 she had risen and after she had set, as she was 

 Diana whilst above the horizon. And Cybele, as 

 above shown, was the inhabited and cultivated 

 earth=Ops in the Roman mythology. She was 

 the daughter of Gaia or Titaea*, the uncultivated 

 earth, by Uranus (the heavens). The names are 

 indeed various, but the thing " signified " is in- 

 telligible enough. T. J. Bockton. 

 Lichfield. 



PHOTOGRAPHIC COBRESPONDENCE. 



Alcoholised Paper. — M. Lespiault has communicated the 

 following process to La Lumiere ; he conceives it to pos- 

 sess some advantages over the wax-paper process : 



" The papers, prepared as I have indicated, do not, it is 

 true, keep very long in this season ; however, if they are 

 sensitised in the morning, or even overnight, they will 

 keep the whole day if care is taken to wash them in 

 three waters. I am speaking of the papiers Saxie, the only 

 sort that I habitually use. Turner's keeps much better, 

 but it is only half as rapid. This is the formula for the 

 preparation of the iodide : 



Eau de vie, from 18° to 20° - - 500 grammes. 



Sugar of milk - - - .to saturation. 



Iodide of zinc - - . . lo grammes. 



Bromide of zinc - - - _ 2 grammes. 



" The quantities of iodide and bromide indicated above 

 may also be dissolved in 250 grammes of distilled water ; 

 saturated with sugar of milk; and 250 grammes of al- 

 cohol added to this solution. 



" The papiers Saxe immersed in this liquid for four or 

 five minutes take a very even rose tint in drying. The 

 paper can be kept in longer without any bad effect. 



'* These papers, once dry, will keep indefinitely ; when 

 it is wished to sensitise them, float them on a bath of 

 a«eto-nitrate of silver of five per cent., with the addition of 

 from seven to eight per cent, of glacial acetic acid. 



" The paper becomes little by little very white ; at the 

 end of four or five minutes, when the tint is very even, 

 it is taken out, and immersed in a bath of distilled 'water : 



• Hence Titam (Heaiod. Tkeog., vv, 126—135. ; Apol- 

 lod. i. 1. § 3.). 

 No. 308.] 



this should be renewed three times, allowing a quarter 

 of an hour between each time, and dried afterwards with 

 blotting-paiier, and the operations continued the same as 

 with the wax-paper. I'^Wi 



" If the bath of aceto-nitrate were more concentrated, 

 ten per cent, for example, the paper would not keep, 

 and the print would want delicacy, if it were weaker, 

 it would be liable to unsensitised patches, or it would be 

 necessary to keep the paper much longer in the liquid. 

 This observation applies, I believe, to all negative papers, 

 and above all to those which are not waxed. 



" Using a lens of three inches in diameter, fifty centi- 

 metres of focal length, with a diaphragm of fifteen milli- 

 metres, a quarter of an hours exposure, instead of thirty- 

 five minutes, is sufficient for photographing an old 

 building or a street. Trees can be taken in the same 

 space of time, if a diaphragm with a large opening is 

 employed ; but, with the same diaphragm, it takes 

 forty minutes. It takes an hour and a half with waxed 

 or albumenised paper. I attribute this enormous differ- 

 ence in rapidity to two causes : first, to the different 

 bases of the iodides ; and, secondlj% to the absence of any 

 fatty substance, such as wax, which retards more or 

 less the formation of the image. If the paper has not 

 been altered by the heat, and the remains of the nitrate 

 which has not been removed by the washing, the whites 

 can be preserved two hours in the bath of gallic acid. 

 The prints so obtained are delicate, and without rough- 

 ness ; and the blacks are always sufficient when the 

 time of exposure has been suitable. 



" M. Lespiault." 



A Hint on Printing. — Being desirous of printing from 

 .two or three negatives, while in the country, with only 

 one pressure frame, and that one in use, I thought 1 would 

 try how f^ir the paper slides of mj camera would answer 

 the purpose. I accordingly treated them as if they had 

 been pressure frames, placed my negative and excited 

 paper in them in the usual way, and having by three or 

 four thicknesses of blotting-paper secured a sufficient 

 pressure, I succeeded in procuring very good positive pic- 

 tures. Of course the idea is a very obvious one ; but as I 

 find, upon mentioning it to several photographic friends, 

 that it is one which, to the best of their knowledge, has 

 not before been adopted, or, if used, has not been pub- 

 lished, I have thought it well to bring it under the notice 

 of your photographic readers. William J. Thoms. 



Deepening Collodion Negatives (Vol. xii., p. 131.). — In 

 answer to the inquiry of M. P. M., in a recent Number, 

 relative to my recommendation of the iodide of cadmium 

 for deepening collodion negatives, I beg to saj^ that I 

 have entirely discarded the use of the protosulphate of 

 iron as a developer, and that I now always use pj'rogallic 

 acid, with which I never fail to get negatives of sufticient 

 intensity to print from. I never, therefore, now have any 

 occasion to deepen my negatives ; but I know of no better 

 method of increasing' the opacity of a verj/ weak negative, 

 than that which I recommended. I may however observe, 

 that it is useless to attempt to increase the intensit}' of a 

 negative which is very weak from having been much 

 over-exposed. 



It is quite immaterial what strength of solution of 

 iodide of cadmium is used, and I may add that a solution 

 of the iodide of zinc will answer equally as well. 



Should M. P. M. wish to ask me any more questions on 

 this subject, I shall be happy to communicate with him 

 privately. ' J. Leachjian. 



