No. IV. is now gently heated till the gelatine is melted and the precipitate mixed with it. It must be kept warm for some time, and shaken vigorously until all granularity has disappeared, This is, of course, ascertained by placing a drop of the emulsion on a piece of glass, and examining it. If it be wished to keep the bromide of silver for future use it may be placed on a piece of muslin stretched in the drying-box, when it will dry in a very short time; and, although I cannot speak from experience on this point, it will, I have no doubt, keep for an indefinite time so long as light is kept from it.
If it be desired the ammonio-nitrate method may be used instead of the boiling one, although in my hands it does not give such sensitiveness. If it be desired to use this method, solution Nos. I, II., and IV. are made up exactly as for the boiling method, except that No. II. is not acidified. Liquid ammonia is then poured with stirring into the silver solution, until it blackens and again clears. Emulsification is performed exactly as described above, but instead of boiling, the emulsion is kept at a temperature of about 100° Fahr. for half an hour, when it is poured into the alcohol, no addition of gelatine being previously made.
I think I may claim for the method which I have just described that it is less troublesome and more certain than either the ordinary washing method or the usual one of precipitating with alcohol, while it affords an easy method of making sensitive silver bromide in such a form that it can be more easily stored and afterwards manipulated than if it were in the form of pellicle. The whole of the soluble salts are eliminated, and also any gelatine which may have been destroyed in the cooking. The amount of alcohol used is comparatively small; in fact, to prepare silver bromide for a pint of emulsion very little more than a pint of methylated spirit is required. Besides this I do not think that I would be wrong in saying that the chance of green fog is reduced to a minimum.
Let me take this opportunity of thanking Captain Abney for his prompt reply to my question about the connection between the proportion of bromide to gelatine in emulsions, and the density of resulting images.--W. K. Burton, in British Journal of Photography.
Old Wrought Iron Gates, Guildhall.