[to be continued.]
[THE YOUNG TIN-TYPERS.]
PART I.
The recitation in Natural Philosophy was just over, and as the class was leaving the room, Fred Ward whispered to his most particular chum, Jim Davis: "I say, Jim, I've hit on an immense idea. Suppose that we set up a photographic gallery. It will be splendid fun."
"That's so," answered Jim. "Let's talk it over."
By this time the French class room was reached, and conversation was for the time suspended; but two o'clock found the boys leaving the school-grounds, engaged in a grand confab about their new plan.
"Now those old fellows that invented all this," said Fred, "had to work hard, because they had nothing to begin with; but as all that we want to know is down in the books, I don't see why we can't take as good a picture as the next one, as soon as we can get a camera and some chemicals. Why, Jim, you can buy the whole rig for five dollars—yes, you can—camera and all, with a stand to set it on."
"Oh, nonsense!" answered Jim; "I wouldn't give a cent to work in that way. Why can't we make the box and mix the baths ourselves? Anybody could buy the machine and take a picture, but it isn't every fellow can make his own apparatus. Now in my Philosophy there are some pictures that show how to put the box together, and we can save money to buy the lenses, and it will be twice as much fun to do everything ourselves."
Jim was very handy with tools, and in a few days he constructed as neat a camera as could be desired for a beginner. It consisted of two boxes, one of which fitted into the other. The interior of the boxes was painted black, so that the light through the lenses would be all the plate could receive. In the front of the larger box, and directly in the centre, a round hole was cut to receive the tube containing the lenses, and at the back of the small box were grooves to receive the plate slide. The making of that slide was the first serious stumbling-block in the path of these young photographers.