" As an agent in the daguerreotype process, it is not, strictly speaking, photographically affected. It operates there only in virtue of its readiness to amalgamate with silver properly prepared to receive it. That it possesses direct photographic susceptibility, however, in a very eminent degree, is proved by the following experiment. Let a paper be washed over with a weak solution of periodide of iron, and, when dry, with a solution of proto-nitrate of mercury. A bright yellow paper is produced, which (if the right strength of the liquids be hit) is exceedingly sensitive while wet, darkening to a brown colour in a very few seconds in the sunshine. Withdrawn, the impression fades rapidly, and the paper in a few hours recovers its original colour. In operating this change of colour, the whole spectrum is effective, with the exception of the thermic rays beyond the red.

" Proto-nitrate of mercury simply washed over paper, is slowly and feebly blackened by exposure to sunshine. And if paper be impregnated with the ammonio-citrate of iron, already so often mentioned, partially sunned, and then washed with the proto-nitrate, a reduction of the latter salt, and consequently blackening of the paper, takes place very slowly in the dark over the sunned portion, to nearly the same amount as in the direct action of the light on the simply nitrated paper.

"But if the mercurial salt be subjected to the action of light in contact with the ammonio-citrate or tartrate, the effect is far more powerful. Considering, at present, only the citric double salt, a paper prepared by washing first with that salt and then with the mercurial proto-nitrate (drying between) is endowed with considerable sensibility, and darkens to a very deep brown, nay, to complete blackness, on a moderate exposure to good sun. Very sharp and intense photographs of a negative character may be thus taken. They are, however, difficult to fix. The only method which I have found at all to succeed has been by washing them with bichromate of potash and soaking them for twenty-four hours in water, which dissolves out the chromate of mercury for the most part; leaving, however, a yellow tint on the ground, which resists obstinately. But though pretty effectually fixed in this way against light, they are not so against time, as they fade considerably on keeping.

" When the proto-nitrate of mercury is mixed, in solution, with either of the ammoniacal double salts, it forms a precipitate, which, worked up with a brush to the consistence of cream, and spread upon paper, produces very fine pictures, the intensity of which it is almost impossible to go beyond. Most unfortunately, they cannot be preserved. Every attempt to fix them has resulted in the destruction of their beauty and force; and even when kept from light, they fade with more or less rapidity, some disappearing almost entirely in three or four days, while others have resisted tolerably well for a fortnight, or even a month. It is to an over-dose of tartaric acid that their more rapid deterioration seems to be due, and of course it is important to keep down the proportion of this ingredient as low as possible. But without it I have never succeeded in producing that peculiar velvety aspect on which the charm of these pictures chiefly depends, nor anything like the same intensity of colour without over-sunning".