382 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 234. 



to that of a good and costly print. A good plain or 

 tinted sheet of drawing-paper, 30 inches by 22, may be 

 obtained at the artists' colour shops for sixpence, suffi- 

 ciently large for two drawings, 9 inches by 11, allowing 

 a sufficient margin. 



After various trials, the plan I have found decidedly 

 the best is the following : — Soak the drawing-paper in 

 a vessel of water for ten minutes, or until it appears by 

 its flaccidity to have become perfectly saturated ; put it 

 at once into an artist's stretching frame, brush over the 

 back of the photograph with rather thin and perfectly 

 smooth paste, allow it a few minutes to imbibe a portion 

 of the moisture of the paste, and then lay it smoothly 

 down on the damp paper now on the stretching frame, 

 of course carefully pressing out all air bubbles as you 

 gradually, beginning at one side, smooth down the 

 pasted picture. It should remain in a dry place (not 

 placed before a fire) until the whole has become quite 

 dry, about ten or twelve hours. It may then be taken 

 out of the frame, cut to the desired shape, and a single 

 or double line nicely drawn around the picture, at a 

 distance suitable to each individual's taste, by the help 

 of sepia-coloured ink and a crowquill pen, both of 

 which may also be bought at the artists' colour shop. 

 Should it be required to be still more nicely mounted, 

 and to appear to have been one and the same paper 

 originally, the back edges of the picture should, pre- 

 vious to laying on the paste, be rubbed down to a fine 

 and knife-like edge with a piece of the finest sand- 

 paper placed on a wine cork, or substance of a similar 

 size. The drawing-paper should be of the same shade 

 and tint as the ground of the photograph. 



A novice in the wax-paper process (having hereto- 

 fore worked the collodion and calotype, from its very 

 desirable property of keeping long good after being 

 excited, i. e. the wax paper), I am very desirous of 

 getting over an unexpected difficulty in its manipu- 

 lation ; and if some one of the many liberal-minded 

 contributors to your justly wide-spread periodical, well 

 versed in that department of the art, would lend me a 

 helping hand in my present difficulty, I should feel 

 more than obliged for the kindness thereby conferred. 



My wax-paper negative, much to my disappointment, 

 occasionally exhibits, more or less, a speckled appear- 

 ance by transmitted light, which frequently, in deep 

 painting, impresses the positive with an unsightly 

 spotted character, somewhat similar to that of a bad 

 lithograph taken from a worn-out stone. I should 

 wish my wax-paper- negative to be similar in appear- 

 ance to that of a good calotype one, or to show by 

 transmitted light, as my vexatious specimen does when 

 viewed on its right side by reflected light. As the 

 most lucid description must fall far short of a sight of 

 the article itself, I purpose enclosing you a specimen 

 of my failure, a portion of one of the negatives in 

 question. Would immersion, instead of floating on the 

 gallo-nitrate solution, remedy the evil ? Or should 

 the impressed sheet be entirely immersed in the deve- 

 loping fluid in place of being floated? And if in the 

 affirmative, of what strength should it be? I have 

 thus far tried both plans in vain. Henry H. Hele. 



[The defects described by our correspondent are so 

 frequent with manipulators in the wax-paper process, 



and which Dr. Manseix has called so aptly a "gra- 

 velly appearance," that we shall be glad to receive com- 

 munications from those of our numerous correspon- 

 dents who are so fortunate as to avoid it.] 



The New Waxed-paper, or Ce.role.ine Process. — The 

 following process, communicated to the French paper 

 Cosmos by M. Stephane Geoffroy, and copied into 

 La Lumiere, appears to possess many of the advantages 

 of the wax-paper, while it gets rid of those blemishes 

 of which so many complain. I have therefore thought 

 it deserving the attention of English photographers, 

 and so send a translation of it to " N. & Q." As I 

 have preserved the French measures — the litre and 

 the gramme — I may remind those who think proper to 

 repeat M. Geoffroy's experiments, that the former is 

 equal to about 2 pints and 2 ounces of our measure ; 

 and that the gramme is equal to 15*438 grains, nearly 

 15^. Anon. 



I send you a complete description of a method for 

 either wet or dry paper, which has many advantages 

 over that of Mr. Le Gray. 



I assure you it is excellent ; and its results are 

 always produced in a manner so easy, so simple, and 

 so certain, that I think I am doing great service to 

 photographers in publishing it. 



1st. I introduce 500 grammes of yellow or white 

 wax into 1 litre of spirits of wine, of the strength 

 usually sold, in a glass retort. I boil the alcohol till 

 the wax is completely dissolved (first taking care to 

 place at the end of my retort an apparatus, by means of 

 which I can collect all the produce of the distillation). 

 I pour into a measure the mixture which remains in the 

 retort while liquid ; while it is getting cool, the myricine 

 and the cerine harden or solidify, and the ceroleine re- 

 mains alone in solution" in the alcohol. I separate this 

 liquid by straining it through fine linen ; and by a last 

 operation, I filter it through a paper in a glass funnel, 

 after having mixed with it the alcohol resulting from 

 the distillation. I keep in reserve this liquor in a 

 stopper-bottle, and make use of it as I want it, after 

 having mixed it in the following manner. 



2nd. Next I dissolve, in 150 grammes of alcohol, of 

 36 degrees of strength, 20 grammes of iodide of am- 

 monium (or .of potassium), 1 gramme of bromide of 

 ammonium or potassium, 1 gramme of fluoride of 

 potassium or ammonium. 



I then pour, drop by drop, upon about 1 gramme of 

 fresh-made iodide of silver a concentrated solution of 

 cyanide of potassium, only just sufficient to dissolve it. 



I add this dissolved iodide of silver to the preceding 

 mixture, and shake it up : there remains, as a sediment 

 at the bottom of the bottle, a considerable thickness of 

 ail the above salts, which serve to saturate the alcohol 

 by which I replace successively the saturated which I 

 have extracted by degrees in the proportions below. 



3rd. Having these two bottles ready, when I wish 

 to prepare negatives, I take about 200 grammes of the 

 solution No. 1. of ceroleine and alcohol, with which I 

 mix 20 grammes of the solution No. 2.; I filter the 

 mixture with care, to avoid the crystals which are not 

 dissolved, which always soil the paper ; and in a porce- 

 lain tray I make a bath, into which I lay to soak for 



