THE WOMBAT. 67 



While considering the quantity of gold required to tone 

 a given area of paper to any required colour, it will be as well 

 to draw the attention of members to the varying quality of 

 the commercial chloride of gold. Some samples will go just 

 twice as far as others. The text-books tell us that one grain 

 of chloride of gold and sodium (the form in which chloride of 

 gold is usually supplied in this market) should contain 494 

 grains of metallic gold, but samples have been met with in 

 commerce that do not contain half of this quantity, so that if 

 one of these poor samples finds its way into the hands of 

 the amateur he will have to use a proportionately larger 

 quantity of the material in making up his toning bath or use 

 a larger volume of bath to tone a given number of prints. A 

 complaint is often made by beginners that they cannot obtain 

 the fine tones got by some other practitioners although they 

 use the same formula. In many instances this will be found 

 to arise from the employment of poor negatives. It was said 

 many years ago that the tone of a print is settled when the 

 negative leaves the developer, and there is a good deal of truth 

 in this, in that a print from a brilliant negative is much more 

 readily toned to any desired colour than one from a thinner 

 one, and prints having a washed-out appearance, such as are 

 made from very thin, foggy, or ghostly negatives are very 

 difficult to tone in any bath ; in the majority of cases no 

 satisfactory tone is obtainable at all. It is of no use trying to 

 tone a print of this nature and then, on finding that brilliant 

 browns or purples are not forthcoming, blaming the toning 

 bath and seeking another formula. The photographer should 

 in this case go a little further back, and set to work to im- 

 prove the quality of his negatives, and then toning troubles 

 will cease. 



We now come to the fixing operation. The fixing solution 

 which is all but universal is what is called " hypo-sulphite " 

 of soda ; it is, strictly speaking, thio-sulphate of soda, and it 

 varies in strength according to the work in hand. Ammonia 

 was used with great success by some practitioners for the 

 fixing of silver prints in the old times. 



The only points to be attended to in the operations 

 attending fixing are, to use a sufficient quantity of solution ; 

 to use this solution of a sufficient strength and for a long 

 enough time ; to allow the solution free access to all parts of 

 each print by keeping the prints continually moving and 

 perfectly covered during the fixing operation ; and to thoroughly 

 eliminate the products of fixing by the plentiful application of 

 water as rapidly as possible after the fixing has been performed. 

 The first three points are the most important, for if they are 

 not properly attended to, the final washing, be it ever so good, 

 will help the performance but little. In the operation of 

 fixing, we will assume, for the sake of convenience, that the 



