_Washing Collodion Pictures._--I have never offered to your readers an opinion in photography without having _bona fide_ tested it, to the best of my ability; and however correct my friend MR. SHADBOLT may be, chemically and theoretically, I am convinced that in practice so good a tone is never obtained in a positive collodion picture which has been washed, as in one which has been instantly fixed with the old saturated solution of hyposulphite of soda. The unpleasant tints obtained upon positive collodion pictures, I believe to be much dependent upon the frequent washings in the proofs. When a collodion picture is properly treated, it surpasses in pleasing effect every other photograph. H. W. DIAMOND. * * * * * Replies to Minor Queries. _Cremonas_ (Vol. vii., p. 501.).--A discriminative account of the violins and basses by the great Italian makers, showing, in every ascertainable instance, the date of manufacture, and thereby forming to some extent a chronological catalogue, as it were, of the works of each master, would be, indeed, a curious and interesting achievement. Such a task, involving much consultation of books and examination of instruments, calls for sounder eye-sight and larger opportunities than are possessed by me; but I shall rejoice if the desire expressed by your correspondent H. C. K. shall be found to have stirred up some competent investigator. Time and accident are gradually attaching, to the fine instruments in question, a kind of _sibylline_ intensity of value; and the inquiry, if omitted now, may become impossible hereafter. Let us not fear, however, that those "cunning'st patterns of excelling art," the Amati, Stradivari, and Guarneri fiddles, will eventually perish without worthy issue, and "die, and leave the world no copy." Provision to the contrary, it seems, has already been made; Monsieur Vuillaume "has ta'en order for't," that is to say, _if_ his instruments, which at present look very like faithful fac-similes of the renowned classic prototypes, shall verify the confident predictions of their admirers, by continuing to stand the test of time. My authority for 1664 as the date of birth of Antonio Stradivari, is a living Belgian writer, Monsieur Fetis, who has not stated from whence {583} he has adopted it. I find that the Paris _Biographie Universelle_ gives no fixed date, but only a conjectural one, _about_ 1670, so that 1664 _may_ possibly be right. G. DUBOURG. Brighton. _James Chaloner_ (Vol. vii., p. 334.).--MR. HUGHES is mistaken in imagining that James Chaloner the herald-painter was the same person as James Chaloner, Governor of the Isle of Man, and one of the judges of Charles I. He will find the error exposed by Chalmers (_Biog. Dict._, JAS. C.), and in my family, as descendants of the latter James Chaloner, there are among his papers many which prove the governor to have been (as MR. HUGHES doubts) the son of Sir Thomas Chaloner of Gisborough.