MAGIC PHOTOGRAPHS.
PHOTOGRAPHIC CIGAR HOLDER.
DEVELOPING THE PHOTO.
A recent novelty is a cigar or cigarette holder accompanied by a small package of photographic paper about the size of a postage stamp. One of these papers is placed in the interior of the holder, before an orifice arranged for the purpose. The smoke of the tobacco, coming in contact with it, develops a portrait or other subject. The process employed is very simple and consists in preparing a small photograph on chloride of silver paper. The paper can be purchased ready prepared. The prints are fixed in a bath of sodium hyposulphite (eight to ten per cent.), without having been toned with gold. They are then washed with great care in order to free the fibres of the paper from every trace of the salt, which would cause a yellowing of the print after it was finished. The print is now taken and floated on a five per cent. bath of bichloride of mercury. The images at first gradually fade and finally disappear altogether. After the prints are thoroughly bleached, they are washed in water and allowed to dry. In order to make the latent image appear, it is only necessary to immerse the print in a weak five-per-cent. solution of sulphite or hyposulphite of sodium. When the prints are to be developed photographically, they are placed in the cigar holder so that the lateral orifice in the holder will admit the smoke to the print. The ammoniacal vapors contained in tobacco smoke possess, like sodium hyposulphite, the property of coloring black the chloride of mercury contained in the prepared paper.