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8 Motes. The amyl-acetate lamp is not alone useful for the purpose of testing photographic plates, and for employ ment as the unit of light in photographic research, but it can be made of value as the source of illumination in the developing room lantern. The only alteration necessary would be to slip off the removable spring clip which carries the standard screen with its small aperture, and to slip on another spring clip carrying an opaque tube with the bottom of which to cut off the light from the top of the flame, so as to minimise variations due to flickering. Light paraffin spirit, commonly called benzoline, will practically do well enough to burn it when it is used for developing room purposes. If the parts of lamp were to be made by special machinery, so that the retail cost should bear a moderate relation to the cost of the metal plus the labour, possibly it might have a world-wide sale among the general public for household purposes. The present little benzoline lamps sold in the shops in such large numbers at a few pence each, have a wretched arrange ment for raising the wick, which arrangement soon gets out of order. We know of a case in which some individuals made diligent inquiry in lamp shops over an area of about two square miles in London, in the attempt to get better benzoline lamps with good double screws for raising the wicks, but were unsuccessful in the search; in fact, such lamps do not seem to be in the market. The general public, of course, would care nothing whether such lamps did or did not give a standard light of use in photometry, but any manu facturer who produced them might as well give the standard dimensions settled by the Paris Congress, as any other dimensions. Some weeks ago we put the question why glass stu dios should not be jacketed, on the principle of the double-windows so extensively used in houses in Con tinental Europe, in order that the interior may keep comfortably warm with a small expenditure of fuel. One friend at once ridiculed the idea as “impracticable,” but a week or two later came the letter from our St. Petersburgh correspondent, setting forth that in that city nearly all the glass photographic studios are jacketed; the outer glass “skin” is usually about eight inches everywhere from the inner skin. The arctic weather in London during the past three weeks may cause photographers to think a little about the merits of such studios, and also to think whether there would not be some wisdom in the introduction of the double-window system into all English houses. In Iceland the very cattle have double doors to their homes, as represented in one of the photographs taken by a member of the party of amateurs which recently visited that bleak and desolate country. The photo graphs were such as to send a cold chill through those observers whose tastes lead them to prefer the sunny south, the regions of the myrtle and the vine, of the palm tree and the orange blossom. [January 2, 1891. Another subject on which the professional photo grapher may well brood in this dark, inclement season is, why the smoky air of British towns should be allowed to come between him and the solar source of his more immediate means of subsistence, as distin guished from the term potential energy when employed in a scientific sense. The Londoner pays so much a ton for coal, then burns it in such ignorantly constructed grates that about three-quarters of the heat for which he has paid escapes up the chimney, accompanied by myriads of “blacks” to do injury to the poor photo grapher. The jerry-builders are answerable for much household waste and misery. With the intensely conservative nature of uneducated men who follow small mechanical trades, they imitate the methods of their fathers before them, and turn out pie-crust houses with bad drains, bad ventilation, ignorantly devised grates, ugly architecture, and so on, their only excuse being that the house is constructed to fall down at the end of the lease. The average Briton has to put up with these rotten homes, because he is practically divorced from the possession of any of the soil of his own country—except, perhaps, the six feet or there abouts of which he may be the possessor in the end. St. Peter at last has become a subject of joking in the photographic world, or rather in the Photographic Glohe in italics, for in that journal appeareth the offence:— St. Peter-. “Who are you?” New Arrival : “An amateur photographer.” St. Peter-. “You will find the dark room down below.” Why St. Peter should be dragged into the photo graphic world is not clear, for there is no record that he had anything to do with photography; but those jokists who deal with him in comic papers are in danger, as evidenced by the following narrative from last week’s Pick-Hile- Up :— Not a few stories, of more or less doubtful origin, have been told of St. Peter ; but the following can be vouched for :— The janitor was enjoying a cool siesta, when he was aroused by the dismal strains of the “ Dead March ” rising from beneath. Thinking, however, it could hardly mean business coming his way —it very seldom does of late —he was again composing himself to sleep, when lo ! the usual tap at the door. “ What do you want ? ” asked Peter, peering through a chink, for he has to be very circumspect nowadays. “Who are you?” “I was the champion jokist of a leading comic paper. So sorry I had to come away just now ; I had just excelled myself. The funniest thing I ever did. They are bringing it out in this week's .” “ Yes, I know,” said the doorkeeper, gently, as the last melancholy note of the “Dead March ” was wafted to his ear, “I hear them at it! ” And as he drew the bolt of the trap-door on which the jokist stood, the latter slode grace fully down the pneumatic tube. The photographer deals with not a few solutions and salts which deteriorate from exposure to air, and various are the dodges which he will adopt to prevent atmo spheric oxygen from playing its accustomed pranks. There is now in the market a form of bottle which will be prized by many, for by a simple movement the stopper fitted to it makes the closure comparatively air tight. We trust that this form of stopper- may be THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS.
