There is, undoubtedly, a strong prejudice in the minds of most photographers, both amateur and professional, against a negative in which paper is used as a permanent support, on account of the inseparable "grain" and lack of brilliancy in the resulting prints; and the idea of the paper being used only as a temporary support does not seem to convey to their mind a correct impression of the true position of the matter. It may be as well before entering into the technical details of the manipulation to consider briefly the advantages to be derived--which will be better appreciated after an actual trial. My experience (which is at present limited) is that they are far superior to glass for all purposes except portraiture of the human form or instantaneous pictures where extreme rapidity is necessary, but for all ordinary cases of rapid exposure they are sufficiently quick. The first advantage, which I soon discovered, is their entire freedom from halation. This, with glass plates, is inseparable, and even when much labor has been bestowed on backing them, the halation is painfully apparent. These films never frill, being made of emulsion which has been made insoluble. Compare the respective weights of the two substances--one plate weighing more than a dozen films of the same size. Again, on comparing a stripping film negative with one on glass of the same exposure and subject, it will be found there is a greater sharpness or clearness in the detail, owing, I am of opinion, to the paper absorbing the light immediately it has penetrated the emulsion, the result being a brilliant negative. Landscapes on stripped films can be retouched or printed from on either side, and the advantage in this respect for carbon or mechanical printing is enormous. Now, imagine the tourist working with glass, and compare him to another working with films. The one works in harness, tugging, probably, a half hundredweight of glass with him from place to place, paying extra carriage, extra tips, and in a continual state of anxiety as to possible breakage, difficulty of packing, and having to be continually on the lookout for a dark place to change the plates, and, perhaps, on his return finds numbers of his plates damaged owing to friction on the surface; while the disciple of _films_, lightly burdened with only camera and slide, and his (say two hundred) films in his pockets, for they lie so compact together. Then the advantages to the tourists abroad, their name is "legion," not the least being the ease of guarding your exposed pictures from the custom house officials, who almost always seek to make matters disagreeable in this respect, and lastly, though not least, the ease with which the negatives can be stowed away in envelopes or albums, etc., when reference to them is easy in the extreme.