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472 THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. [Jviy 24, 1885. bo very flat when dry, and it is necessary to damp it again very slightly, and to put it between sheets of blotting paper, and sub mit it to piessure between the pages of a book. After a very short pressing it will come out quite smooth, and will remain so, if kept dry. Notes. That the ferrous-oxalate developer should be so much neglected in this country is one of those enigmas that appear insoluble; and, in relation to this matter, all should read a letter which appears on page 477, and is signed with the well-known name, S- Bottone. Mr. Bottone contends that not only is the oxalate deve loper economical in use, but if made up in two solutions, it can be kept for years; while for meeting cases of over exposure or under-exposure, it is especially adapted. Not so much a talker as a worker is Mr. Bottone, and perhaps someone will accept his challenge and supply him with plates exposed between the normal and ten times the normal. To make the affair more interesting, a champion of pyro should work on similar plates, and perhaps arrange ments could be made for the trial of “ oxalate v. pyro,” to come off at the Photographic Club. Speaking of the Photographic Club (not the proposed new quasi-amateur club), it is perhaps not generally known that this Association possesses a convenient meeting place fitted with dark-room and all conveniences for such casual photographic work as there may be occasion to do on the premises. It is not always wise to show a negative to a customer Once, in the days of wet plates, a photographer was engaged by the proprietor of a country hotel to photo graph a summer-house—or, rather, a series of summer houses—of which the owner was intensely proud. The peculiarity of the edifice was its roof, which was entirely formed of ivy, so trained that the stems and branches formed natural groins. The place was the outcome of quite a century of loving care, and the landlord thought he would like to have a picture of it. By chance the photo grapher forgot to take any fixing solution, but he thought little of the omission, as he knew he could fix the plates on arriving home. He took some half-a-dozen negatives, and the landlord, anxious to see how the pride of his establishment “ came out,” insisted upon looking at the negatives. Greatly disappointed was he when he saw a greenish-yellow film covering the details, and, being one of those very clever people who always pride themselves upon the impossibility of anybody taking them in, he immediately conceived that the photographer was “hav ing ” him. The terms were to be cash, but he refused to pay before he saw the print, and this breaking of faith rather nettled the photographer, who, losing his temper, rubbed his finger across the negatives, and vowed he would have nothing more to do with the matter. Nor did he. But he also made another vow—never to show an unfinished negative. This vow he has kept, and with benefit to himself. Mrs. Weldon, after crying out fur scaffolding and balloons to rescue the now celebrated cockatoo, has had recourse to photography. The cost of getting down the bird was £3 5s., and the owner being a poor widow, the indefatigable Mrs. Weldon appeals to the public to make up this sum. “The man who caught the naughty thing," she writes, “ is to be photographed with the bird and the ladder : Cabinets, 2s.; cartes, Is. If people would order them of me, and send me the money for them, and a little more, that sum should go towards the widowed lady’s ex penses.” Any collector of odd out-of-the-way photo graphs might do worse than invest a few shillings. The tourist will soon be able to take his balloon ticket, and ascend a mountain by balloon with as little trouble as he now goes up the Righi by railway ; at any rate, this will be so unless something prevents the construction of the air-balloon railway on the Gaisberg near Salzburg. The balloon is to be a captive one in a double sense, as the car will run between vertical rails. The camera will doubtless be frequently brought into requisition by the passengers. Among the more recent inventions of W. B. Woodbury may be mentioned a wonderfully transparent paper, which he proposes to use as a support for the negative film. He has not told us how he makes it, but it does not appear to be prepared with wax, varnish, or other similar prepara tion. In appearance it recals the thin sheet gelatine used in making bon-bon cases. The Photographic Club’s subject for discussion this week was, as we announced last week, “ Soda and Potash Developers.” A thirsty correspondent writes to us, apropos to this, to state “ that the only really effective ‘ developers ’ of a ‘ a soda ’ or ‘ a potash ’ he knows, are whisky and brandy.” If this be a fact, what a “ spirited " discussion the Photographic Club must have had 1 An enterprising Chicago dentist has been turning his patrons, by the aid of photography, to effective advertising account. He has contrived, unknown to his customers, to secure negatives of them as they entered his operating room—or, at any rate, of those of them whose expressions most realistically expressed their sufferings—and has then taken comparison portraits of the same people just before they left his premises, relieved of their pain, and facially beaming in consequence. Pleased with the success of this graphic method of recommending his services, he next essayed to point out to the toothless public the desirability of being fitted with one of his “ guinea jaws,” by exhibit ing comparison cartes of Mr. A and Mrs. B and Miss C, taken before and after their dental deficiencies had been supplied. But to these lasting mementos of a gummy con dition they were anxious to b ury in oblivion, Mr. A and Mrs. B and Miss C promptly and persistently objected,