the last meeting of the session was held on Thursday night in the Union Church Hall, when Mr, Donald Mennie gave als lecture on "Gaslight Papers," with demonstrations. A number of photographs ere tastefully arranged showing the Aillerent sults obtainable on diferent Beebject. "The Chairmat, Dz. Reid, ins and by varying the developer to suit
troduced Mr. Mennie, who said—The printing of negatives on gaslight papers—properly speaking development papers—is rapidly becoming the most popu-Jar of all the printing processes now in vogue, The reasons for this are not far to sock. In gaslight papers are embodied all the luxuries of printing with none of the Arawhacks. Prints are ensily made, with a minimum of time and labour, and with the great advimtage that the dirk room, which is generally tuo hot or too cold and nearly always ill-smelling, is dispensed with, and we can make our prints with perfect ease and comfort in full gaslight. We can produce more prints in an hour with any ordinary gaslight paper than we could in many hours with printing-out Wo can obtain good prints from ives that would yield but indifferent resus with other processes. We have ow choice of several grades of surfuec, and number of colours can be obtained in devel-aping, besides the beautiful black and white results generally produced; and, if the prints are thoroughly fixed and washed, the results are beyond question.
The mere making of good prints on gas-ight paper needs little explanation, "and good results can he readily obtained by following strictly the printed directions enclosed with each packet of paper.
The great mistake that most amateurs make is in sticking to one grade of gaslight paper only, the paper chosen being invariably the conteasty variety, giving hard results, and this is evidenced by the number of soot-and-whitewash " prints in evidence. With weak, thin negatives and thoss lac! ing in contrast a paper that will emphasise contrast is undoubtedly the best to use, but where delicacy and detail are required a laily made for soft results should Any developer that will develop plates may be used for developing gastight papers, such as metol-quinol, amidol, rodinal, edinol, and even pyro. The combination of metol with hydrokinone is the developer in general use, and it is undoubtedly the most satisfactory, giving fine blue-black tones.
Mr. Mennio then proceeded to illustrate his lecture with experiments. Choosing an y exposed negative he pro-the different results obtainable under different treatment and on various Pa His method of bringing up denser portions of a negative by developing locally with colton-wool soaked in developer, or: only developing the parts required although the whole bad been exposed—specially suitable for printing posteards—was most instructive and apparently easy. The selection of paper suited to particular negative to be printed from was seen to be essential, good prints being obtained from both the thinnest and harshest negatives by the us of contiusty or soft papers. Different ints, from dense hi to light brown, were produced by varying the exposure and development, and. the necessity of choosing a tint suited to the picture was clearly shown in the photographs on view.
Dr. Reid conveyed the thanks of the Society to Mr. Mennie for the thorough manner in which he had treated the subject both in his lecture and in the subsequent demonstrations, and for the many beautiful views bearing on it that were exhibited.
It was announced that the first excursion of the season would take place on Saturday next, leaving Shanghai by the 2.40 p.an, train for Chiangwan, conducted by the Secretary, Mr. Longhurst. We hear that a trip to the native city is shortly to take plice which, under proper guidance, should be productive of some most interest-ug studies.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.