870 



On the O.rymcl process 



[NO. 1, NEW SERIES, 



XII. On the Oxymel process in Photography. By J. 

 Tawse, Madras. 



My difficulties with Oxymel have been of two kinds, and which 

 from what I have heard I believe are very generally met with in 

 this country. 



The first of these was rather humiliating in its nature. After a 

 picture had been obtained sometimes at a considerable distance 

 from my place of residence, on proceeding to wash the plate after 

 the development the entire film of Collodion came away in sections 

 leaving nothing but the bare glass. I was at first inclined to at- 

 tribute this to a peculiar state of the Collodion, or to an acid bath 

 which I was told was productive of this consequence. The Collo- 

 dion used however was successively Hockin's, Thomas's, and 

 Home's, and my bath when I first commenced was perfectly neutral 

 to test paper. It then occurred to me to roughen the margin of 

 the plate not simply on the edges but on a space | of an inch all 

 round as has been recommended by Mr. Hardwich. This succeed- 

 ed admirably, the film adhered perfectly during repeated and vio- 

 lent washings. 



The second difficulty I experienced in the production of a nega- 

 tive picture was the want of intensity. I followed the details of 

 Mr. Llewellen's process minutely, but in each case the result was 

 a pale picture, showing ill as a positive and at the same time too 

 weak to print. After repeated experiments I find that the remedy 

 for this is as follows, I must first premise that the developing so- 

 lution I use is the following : 



As soon as the plate is taken out of the frame it is immersed for 

 an instant in distilled water, and then placed on the levelling stand. 

 A rapid washing so as merely to wet the film is all that is required, 



Pyrogallic Acid. . . , 

 Glacial Acetic Acid 

 Alcohol 



1 grain 

 20 ms. 



