ature may be temporarily
got rid of, the fiber of the paper is in a strained condition, and the
bent state of the mount is, sooner or later, renewed thereby.

To remedy these evils it has been proposed to mount the print when dry,
by forcible pressure against a slightly damped card, the back of the
print having been previously coated with a cement and dried. This plan
is, to a great extent, successful; but that it does not give absolute
immunity from distortion is, I think, evident from the following
consideration. The prints, after being mounted a few days, will show a
certain tendency to curl inward. This curling, I take it, is a measure of
the strain upon the print, produced by the more complete return to its
original dimensions of the paper photograph. Probably it would be well to
keep the prints a few days after drying, or to subject them to
alternations of damp and dryness, in order to facilitate this complete
return before being placed upon the card. The evil of distortion is,
however, very slight--perhaps imperceptible--compared with that existing
when the prints are mounted wet. I may mention, _en passant_, that I have
found gum much more satisfactory as a mountant than starch paste in what
is known as the "dry mounting" system.

The paper which has recently been introduced for producing prints by
development upon a gelatine surface does not generally, when dried in the
usual way, give so good or so brilliant a surface as that of albumenized
paper; but on the other hand it is very easy with it to obtain what is
called an enamel surface, by simply allowing it to dry in contact with a
prepared surface of glass. This method of finishing has therefore been
much recommended and adopted, but without consideration of the effect of
distortion in connection with it. In an ordinary photograph the print is
mounted damp, but in the case of a print squeegeed on to the glass, the
paper is saturated and thoroughly swollen, and the use of the squeegee
strains it out to its fullest extent. By drying in the position in which
it has been held by contact with the glass, the distortion becomes fixed,
and if the print is mounted while in this state the distortion is made
permanent. How long the strain and distortion remain in an unmounted
print, and whether by time and alternations of moisture and dryness the
strain would be lost, and if so, whether the brilliant enamel surface
would go at the same time, are questions worthy of furt