Permanent Positives of a black colour may easily be obtained by sensitizing plain paper, free from animal matters, with Oxide of Silver in place of Nitrate. The simply fixed image being in that case of a _sepia tint_, requires a less amount of toning to change it to black. An impression was at one time prevalent that Ammonio-Nitrate prints were unstable; but so far from such being the case, they are proved to withstand the action of all destructive tests better than pictures prepared upon the same kind of paper sensitized with plain Nitrate of Silver. _Mode of testing the permanence of Positives._--The tests for Hyposulphite of Soda are not sufficiently delicate to indicate with certainty when the process of washing has been properly performed. The quantity of that salt left in the paper is usually so small and so much mixed up with organic matter, that the application of Protonitrate of Mercury or of Nitrate of Silver to the liquid which drains from the corner of the print, would probably mislead the operator. A dilute solution of Permanganate of Potash, prepared by dissolving from half a grain or two grains of the salt, according to its purity, in one gallon of distilled water, affords a convenient mode of testing Positives as regards their power of resisting oxidation; and to an experienced eye it will prove the presence or absence of Hyposulphite of Soda, the smallest trace of which is sufficient to remove the pink colour of the Permanganate. The most available and simple plan of testing permanence is to enclose the pictures in a stoppered glass bottle with a small quantity of water. If they retain their half-tones after a course of three months of this treatment, and do not become mouldy, the mode of printing followed is satisfactory. Boiling water will also be found useful in distinguishing the unstable colours produced by Sulphur from those following the judicious employment of Gold; in all cases the image will at first be reddened by the hot water, but if toned without Sulphur it will, as a rule, recover much of its dark colour on drying. The characteristic appearance of prints which have been I much sulphuretted in the toning Bath, and are very liable to fade, should be known. A yellow colour in the lights is a bad sign; and if the half-tones are at all faint and indistinct, with an aspect of commencing yellowness, it is almost certain that the Positive will not last for any considerable length of time. CHAPTER IX. ON THE THEORY OF THE DAGUERREOTYPE AND TALBOTYPE PROCESSES, ETC. SECTION I. _The Daguerreotype._ It was not the original intention of the Author to include a description of the Daguerreotype Process within the limits of the present Work. The Daguerreotype is a branch of the Photographic Art so distinct from the others, that, in manipulatory details, it bears very little analogy to them; a slight sketch of the theory of the process may not however be unacceptable.