There is just one brief season in the year when high speeds of shutters may be used: in the month of April, when a new flurry of snow has put a mantle of dazzling whiteness upon the earth and the sun mounts comparatively high in the heavens. Under such circumstances there is almost, if not quite, tropical illumination. Here is a picture of native football at the Allakaket, just north of the Arctic Circle, made late in April with a Graflex, fitted with a lens working at f. 4.5, at the full speed of its focal-plane shutter--one one-thousandth of a second. In five years' use that was the only time when that speed was used, or any speed above one two-hundred-and-fiftieth. Commonly, even in summer, many more exposures are made with it at one fiftieth than at one one-hundredth, for this is not a brightly lit country in summer, and nearly all visitors and tourists find their negatives much under-timed. The Graflex, though unapproached in its own sphere, is not a good all-round camera, despite confident assertions to the contrary. It is too bulky to carry at all in the winter, and its mechanism is apt to refuse duty in the cold. The 3A Graflex cannot be turned to make a perpendicular photograph, but must always be used with the greatest dimension horizontal. Except in brilliant sunshine it is difficult to get a sharp focus, and, even though the focus appear sharp on the ground glass, the negative may prove blurred. Then the instrument is a great dust catcher and seems to have been constructed with a perverse ingenuity so as to make it as difficult as possible to clean. The writer uses his Graflex almost solely for native portraits and studies, for which purpose it is admirable, and has enabled him to secure negatives that he could not have obtained with any other hand camera. Even in the summer, however, he always carries his 3A Folding Pocket Kodak as well, and uses it instead of the Graflex for landscapes and large groups. If he had to choose between the two instruments and confine himself to one, he would unhesitatingly choose the Folding Pocket Kodak. The difficulties of winter photography in Alaska do not end with the making of the exposure. All water must be brought up in a bucket from a water-hole in the river, and though it be clear water when it is dipped up from under the ice, it is chiefly ice by the time it reaches the house, during any cold spell. One learns to be very economical of water when it is procured with such difficulty, learns to dry prints with blotting-paper between the successive washings, which is the best way of washing with the minimum of water. Blotting-paper is decidedly cheaper than water under some circumstances.