"What is generally termed a saturated solution of gallic acid is, I am led to believe, nothing of the kind. In all the works on photography, the directions given run generally as follow:--'Put an excess of gallic acid into distilled water, shake the mixture for about five minutes, allow it to deposit, and then pour off the supernatant fluid, which is found to be a saturated solution of the acid.' "Now I have found by constant experiment, that by keeping an excess of acid in water for several days, the strength of the solution is greatly increased, and its action as a developing agent materially improved. The method I have adopted is to put half an ounce of crystallized gallic acid into a stoppered quart bottle, and then so to fill it up with water as that, when the stopper is inserted, a little of the water is displaced, and, consequently, every particle of air excluded. "The solution thus prepared will keep for several months. When a portion of it is required, the bottle should be refilled with fresh distilled water, the same care being taken to exclude every portion of atmospheric air,--to the presence of which I am led to believe, is due the decomposition of the ordinary solution of gallic acid. "It will be needless to detain you further in explaining the after-processes, &c. to be found in any of the recent works on the Waxed-paper Process, the translation of the last edition of Le Gray being the one to which I give the preference." * * * * * THE BURIAL SERVICE SAID BY HEART. (Vol. vii., p. 13.) Southey has confounded two stories in conjecturing that the anecdote mentioned by Bp. Sprat related to Bull. It was the _baptismal_ and not the _funeral_ service that Bull repeated from memory. I quote from his _Life_ by Robert Nelson: "A particular instance of this happened to him while he was minister of St. George's (near Bristol); which, because it showeth how valuable the Liturgy is in itself, and what unreasonable prejudices are sometimes taken up against it, the reader will not, I believe, think it unworthy to be related.