The album for the beginner should be a small inexpensive one, the importance of keeping the small collection compact being that it is more readily comprehensible than if scattered meagrely through a wilderness of blank, or nearly blank, pages. If the stamps are carefully arranged in a small album, a rare delight will be found later on, when the collection is bulging the first album covers, in transferring it to a more commodious home. But at the outset too many beginners waste their substance in an elaborate album instead of on the all-important stamps. They buy cumbersome volumes in which the collection in embryo is lost. They should realise from the start that the purpose of the album is to assist in the formation of the collection, by keeping the stamps easy of access for reference and study. A supply of stamp-hinges or "mounts" should be acquired at the outset (their use is explained hereafter), and a pair of tweezers--the kinds sold by stamp-dealers are the most suitable--the points of which should not be too sharp or pointed, lest they penetrate into the delicate substance of a stamp. The collector should cultivate the habit of holding stamps always by means of the tweezers. A good catalogue arranged on a chronological basis is indispensable; the beginner will find the illustrations in it of great assistance in allocating his specimens to their proper places in the album. So much for the primary needs of the beginner. The general collector, who is advancing towards the large collection, will probably use one of the large printed and spaced-out albums provided for his needs by the enterprise of philatelic publishers. He has his work made easy for him, so far as the identification of specimens is concerned, and the allocation and symmetrical distribution of them upon the pages. Being saved all this, and nearly all necessity for individual annotation, he should give his best attention to the excellence of condition in his stamps and the perfection of mounting. The stamps should be clean before they are mounted, that is to say, they should have any superfluous envelope-paper removed by careful floating on warm water, or by moistening between damp sheets of clean white blotting-paper. If there be any extraneous marking or blemish, it may be removed if it admits of removal without damage to the specimen. The result of atmospheric action on some colours (such as vermilion and ultramarine), which will frequently be found to have turned a red or blue stamp into one that appears to be black, or at any rate black in parts, is removed by treatment with peroxide of hydrogen applied with a camel's-hair brush to the parts which have been affected by the action of the atmosphere. The process is erroneously called "de-oxidising" by many philatelists; it is really de-sulphurisation.