This section is from the book "A Manual Of Photography", by Robert Hunt. Also available from Amazon: A Manual of Photography.
If iodide of silver is precipitated by mixing together solutions of iodide of potassium and nitrate of silver in a concentrated state, a heavy yellow powder falls, which will scarcely change in colour by an exposure of many days to sunshine. But if the solutions are infinitely diluted, so that on mixing they only become milky, and the light powder which occasions the opacity falls but slowly to the bottom of the vessel, it will be found that it is sensitive to the weakest solar radiations. There does not appear to be any chemical difference between the iodides thus obtained ; but there are some remarkable physical peculiarities, and it is believed that attention to these will be found eventually to be of the utmost importance.
 
Continue to: