THE BOOK OF THE LANTERN. 205 



mounted in an album, and much pleasure will doubtless be 

 derived from them. They may possibly not be grand 

 specimens of solar work, but they will serve to remind the 

 author of many a pleasant ramble, and many little incidents 

 of places visited and people met with, which otherwise 

 might have passed into oblivion. He will be able " to fight 

 his battles o'er again," as he tells his friends of difficulties 

 encountered by the way. But at the best this means a 

 great deal of work, and work, too, which to a great extent 

 is mechanical, and therefore tedious. The printing, toning 

 and fixing of a batch of prints is no light matter to an ama- 

 teur, who has generally to do everything for himself. Some 

 prints are sure to get over-exposed, others suffer from the 

 opposite failing, and even if all goes well in the preliminary 

 operation of exposure, there is that terrible toning bath to 

 come. This bath sometimes, for some obscure reason, will 

 refuse to give the desired colour, and our batch of prints, 

 instead of being " joys for ever," turn out to be sandy- 

 looking, bilious objects, which we are afraid to show to 

 anybody. 



What if some magician were to appear suddenly at the 

 elbow of the disgusted worker, and tell him that there was 

 a way of producing positives from those negatives without 

 all this trouble ? That such positives could be shown en- 

 larged to an almost indefinite extent, and that pictures five, 

 ten, or fifteen feet in diameter could be shown in perfection, 

 the original negative from which they are taken measuring 

 only three and a quarter inches. There is no need for any 

 magician, for the thing can be achieved, not easily, for the 

 work, like most photographic manipulations, requires a 



