Secondly. The use for this purpose of castor oil, or any other analogous oil, more especially with the view of peeling off the film from the paper backing as above described. * * * * * SOME OF THE USES OF COMMON ALUM. A substance very much used by photographers of late years--in fact, so much used that no well-appointed laboratory could be considered complete without it--is the substance known is common alum, or potash alum, being a double sulphate of alumina and potash; but it is interesting to note that much of the commercial alum met with at the present time is ammonia alum, or the double sulphate of alum and ammonia. It is quite a matter of indifference to the photographer whether he uses potash alum or ammonia alum. Besides its great value to the autotype, Woodburytype, and mechanical printers as an agent for hardening the gelatine films, it has been recommended for all sorts of ailments photographic. The silver printer adds a small portion to his sensitizing bath to keep it in working order, and to prevent blistering of the albumen; then, again, silver prints are soaked in a dilute solution of alum, having for its object the thorough elimination of the last traces of the fixing salt. A very good proportion to use for this latter purpose is four fluid ounces of a saturated solution, diluted with one gallon of water, the prints being well agitated during an immersion of ten minutes. Of all the uses to which alum is put, perhaps not in any single instance can so much satisfaction be derived as when it is used to arrest frilling of gelatine plates. This it has the power to do instantaneously, and many of the most careful workers, both amateur and professional, or at least those who do net care to run any unnecessary risks with negatives which have cost them a good deal of anxiety and trouble to secure, but prefer to make assurance doubly sure--such individuals may be numbered by the hundred--make it a point in every-day practice to immerse all their plates in a solution of alum, either before fixing, or immediately afterward. In fact, some operators have two alum baths in use, one a normal bath, as above mentioned, for immersing the plates in when of the ordinary printing intensity; and the other a saturated solution strongly acidified by means of a vegetable acid (such as citric) or a mineral acid (such as sulphuric), for use when there is too much printing density, since it has been found in practice that an acid solution of alum in contact with sodium thio-sulphate on the gelatine image (after fixing, but before washing) not only removes the color or stain caused by the alkaline or pyrogallol, but perceptibly reduces the strength of the image. Moreover, the color does not again reappear after washing, as it does sometimes when the fixing salt has been partially washed away. In cases where there is great tendency to frill--such, for instance, as when a soft