With an anastigmatic lens working at, say f. 6-3, and with a "speed" film (glass plates are utterly out of the question on the trail), it is possible to make a snap-shot at one twenty-fifth of a second on a clear day, around noon, even in the dead of winter, in any part of Alaska that the writer has travelled in. There are those who write that they can always hold a camera still enough to get a sharp negative at even one tenth of a second. Probably the personal equation counts largely in such a matter, and a man of very decided phlegmatic temperament may have advantage over his more sanguine and nervous brother. The thing may be done; the writer has done it himself; but the point is it cannot be depended on; at this speed three out of four of his exposures will be blurred, whereas at one twenty-fifth of a second a sharp, clear negative may always be secured. It may be admitted at once that at extremely low temperatures the working of any shutter becomes doubtful, and most of them go out of any reliable action altogether. After trying and failing completely with three or four of the more expensive makes of shutters, the writer has for the last few years used a "Volute" with general satisfaction, though in the great cold even that shutter (from which all trace of grease or oil was carefully removed by the makers) is somewhat slowed up, so that a rare exposure at 50° or 60° below zero would be made at an indicated speed of one fiftieth rather than at one twenty-fifth, taking the chance of an under-exposed rather than a blurred negative. To wish for a shutter of absolute correctness and of absolute dependability under all circumstances, arranged for exposures of one fifteenth and one twentieth as well as one tenth and one twenty-fifth, is probably to wish for the unobtainable. [Sidenote: CARE OF FILMS AND CAMERAS] The care of the camera and the films, exposed and unexposed, the winter through, when travelling on the Alaskan trail, is a very important and very simple matter, though not generally learned until many negatives have been spoiled and sometimes lenses injured. It may be summed up in one general rule--keep instrument and films always outdoors.