I looked over the hotel register as usual to see if I could find anyone I knew and was mighty glad to see Roams' name well toward the bottom of the page. The clerk said he had bought a magazine and gone to his room and as it had been one of those sultry rainy days when it is hard to work and the storm had broken again just at dusk, I felt sure my company would be acceptable, so I went up.

There was a hearty "come in" in answer to my knock and I found the usual cordial welcome and Roams with his pipe and magazine, evidently enjoying himself.

"I am awfully glad to see you, Hotson. I was just thinking what an enormous amount of electricity is running around loose to-night and what a fine thing it would be if it could be bottled up and used about Christmas time to run Aristo Lamps, or better still, used right now on a few extra ice machines. And that reminds me of a joke on myself I must tell you about. So many troubles just now are traced to lack of care in the temperature of solutions that I have formed the habit of carrying my stirring rod thermometer in my pocket and taking the temperature of all solutions I use.

"Well, I was looking over my mail at lunch to-day and when the waiter brought me my iced tea, without thinking, I dropped the thermometer into it and when I looked up a moment later, was on the point of telling him the developer was too badly discolored to be very fresh, but I awoke to the fact that I was at lunch and not in a studio."

As Roams seemed in a talkative mood, I thought I would get some good information from him, for the Stock House man has a chance to help the photographer out of trouble once in a while himself. I asked him what the summer troubles of the photographer really were.

"Well, Hotson," he replied, "I have just been reading that interesting little story, The Return of Peter Grim,' and it has made me wonder what some old wet plate and albumen photographers would think of our modern day methods if they could come back to earth, as Peter did, and see what we have grown up with in the progress of things photographic and look upon as matter of fact.

Seed Plate By Rudolph Duhrkoop Berlin, Germany.

Seed Plate By Rudolph Duhrkoop Berlin, Germany.

"Why, Hotson, you could give one of those old boys a manual and the paper, negatives, and chemicals and the chances are two to one he would do better than many of us, for he would not be self-confident. We feel too sure of ourselves. We are living in a day and age when we think things ought to work automatically, but those boys of the old school had to work out their own salvation and find the cause of their own troubles, for there were no demonstrators in those days to help them out and they were the manufacturers themselves.

"Just now, the troubles are mostly with fixing baths being too warm or overworked and the prints partially toning during the time they are fixing. You see when the bath gets too warm or too old, sulphurization begins and the prints start to tone sepia or yellow in spots. The sulphite of soda prevents this if the bath is fresh and the sulphite pure but the temperature should never be over 70°.

"Then some sulphite contains sulphate and a drop of sulphate will make the bath milky in short order. It is also a fact that good sulphite will deteriorate in solution after a time and the bath become milky. This is a good danger signal, but a fixing bath should never be used as long as possible before a new one is made. Always be sure the bath has not been overworked and is not too warm and the greatest danger of poor prints in warm weather is overcome. Our experience has taught us that the usual 64 oz. fixing bath should not be used for more than two gross cabinet prints.

"Only last week on one of those warm days, I found a man who was troubled with prints turning yellow while drying, and what do you suppose was the cause of it?

"That was an easy one, Hot-son; the fixing bath was partially worn out and some sulphur had been released. The prints had not been thoroughly washed. They were black when they came out of the wash water, but as they contained some hypo and became warm when they were laid out in the air naturally, sulphurization, begun in fixing, continued in the wet prints and they toned in spots while they were drying. I proved my theory by the permanganate test. It is the best way to be certain the hypo is all out of a print and the test never fails."

Seed Plate By Rudolph Duhrkoop Berlin, Germany.

August. Bulletin: The Eastman School Of Professional Photography For 1911

Buffalo, N. Y............Aug. 22, 23, 24

Pittsburg, Pa............Aug. 29, 30, 31

Columbus, O.............Sept. 5, 6, 7

Indianapolis, Ind..........Sept. 12, 13, 14

Grand Rapids, Mich.........Sept. 19, 20, 21

Milwaukee, Wis...........Sept. 26, 27, 28

Des Moines, Ia............Oct. 3, 4, 5

Seed Plate By Rudolph Duhrkoop Berlin, Germany.

The composition, lighting and posing of each picture is given the individual attention necessary to make it a study of your most attractive personality.

That is why our portraits please.

From An Etching Sepia Platinum Print By Elias Goldensky Philadelphia, Pa.