Chapter I: HAVE often been asked to describe a “Cabinet for Specimens,” such as (2)

At the point where the rails cross (_d_, _fig. 3._) you will need a frog, to allow your train to go smoothly over. To make this, you cut your side rails square off at _d_, and begin it again on the inside of the rail, leaving a space of a quarter of an inch open to let the flange of your car wheels pass through.

Also, you must cut a notch in your regular track at the same point, so that the wheels on trains switching off may go through (_fig. 4_).

Now your track is ready, you may begin on the train; and first the trucks.

TO MAKE THE TRUCKS.

For wheels you need a lot of rather large spools with quite thick shanks, unless you can afford to have brass or wooden ones turned for you. The best spools come in the shops of New York, with French sewing cotton, and next best are those which hold the knitting silk, so much used nowadays by ladies.

Ask your mother and sisters, and all your fancy-work loving friends, to save their spools for you, and it will not be long before you have enough.

Saw each spool into three pieces, as at _a, a_ (_fig. 5_). The outsides form the wheels with their flanges _c, c,_ and the middle piece _b_, you will need later.

Now for axles, the best are cheap lead pencils (cost one cent each), but you can use common skewers such as butchers use, whittled down to fit. The axles are to fit tightly into the wheels, and turn with them.

Now take a block an inch thick, four inches long, and two and a half wide, to hold the wheels. In each corner of the underside of the block, three quarters of an inch from the end, screw a very light wire screw ring (or screw eye) with a ring a half-inch in diameter.

The axles run through these rings with the flanges of the wheels next to the block, to run inside the track.

Next comes the car itself.

TO MAKE THE CARS.

Cigar boxes are nice for cars, being already very neatly made. You can get at the cigar stores, at small cost, if not as a gift, any number of boxes with square ends, that is, with the ends of the box as high as they are wide. After you have washed off the paper, get two boards, one a quarter or three eighths of an inch thick, and the other somewhat thinner, both being the width of the box. Saw off pieces three inches longer than the boxes, for platform and roof.

First fasten your trucks under the thicker board, which is the bottom. To do this, bore a gimlet hole exactly through the middle of each truck block; put a six-penny nail from the bottom, first through the hole in the truck block, then through the cast-off part of a spool (_b_, _fig. 5_), or half of it if too thick, or a small twist spool a half-inch high. Nail one to each end of the board loosely, so it will turn.

Now, carefully take apart your cigar box, and mark on each long side a row of windows, like a passenger car, and in each end piece mark a door. Saw them out on a jig saw. (If you have no saw you can paint windows on the outside.)

After cutting the windows and doors, put the box together again, with the brads which held it before, and laying it on to the platform board, so that each end of the board projects for a platform, nail them together. Then open the cover (which must never be broken off) and nail the roof board on to it in the same way; that is, so it will project at each end. Use brads for this nailing. The object of fastening the roof to the cover is that you may open your car and fill it with passengers if you choose.

TO MAKE THE COUPLINGS.

Take pieces of stiff copper wire three inches long, and with pliers bend over one end of each to form a hook, and the other ends into a small ring. Turning your car upside down, lay one of these wires in the middle of the end, with only the hook sticking out, and fasten it by a small screw through the ring (_fig. 6_); do the same at the other end, and then with some small brass curtain rings, which cost two or three cents a dozen, you can couple your cars nicely.

Baggage and freight cars you can make in the same way, only cutting one large door in the side. You can make the cars as showy as you please, with paint of different colors, and finish them with a piece of muslin glued part way over the windows inside for shades. And now last comes the engine.

TO MAKE THE ENGINE.

For the foundation take a board one foot long, and three inches wide, which I will call the platform. To make the boiler, have a cylinder turned of wood, two and a half inches in diameter, and eight inches long; or take a square piece of that size and shave it down yourself to a cylinder; or—what is less trouble, and costs little—have a tinner make one for you, open at both ends, of course.

The one I will describe, since it is the most simple to make, is the wooden one. Nail it to the platform board in such a way that the board will project in front one inch. You will have to nail it from the bottom of the board.

Now take a three-quarter-inch auger and bore a hole one inch deep, in the top of the boiler, one half inch from the front end. This is to receive the smoke stack. To make the smoke stack, get a piece of dowelling three quarters of an inch thick, and four inches long, or use a bit of broom handle of that length. Shave the end down till it fits nicely into the hole on top of the boiler. Have it reach to the bottom of the hole, so as to be firm, and leave three inches standing up.

To finish the smoke stack, and make it look like the newest fashion in American engines, you must nail on to the top, with brads, a round piece of wood, a quarter of an inch thick, and a quarter of an inch larger all around than the broomstick itself. Behind the boiler

MAKE THE CAB.

This is a peculiar thing, and the boy builder of the cigar-box train insists that it must be done exactly as he directs, in order to make a really _proper_ cab. To proceed, then:

For the front piece take a board a half-inch thick, three and three quarters inches high, and two and a half wide. Cut with a jig saw, near the top, two windows, one on each side, to overlook the engine. Nail this to the back end of the boiler, and to the floor. Make the two side pieces of the cab of cigar-box wood three inches wide and four inches high. In these cut two windows, also near the top. Before you nail these side pieces on, make a third piece out of half-inch wood, two and a quarter inches long, by two and a half wide, and nail it with brads to the front piece of the cab, one inch from the floor, like a shelf. This is the real floor, and without it your cab will be a mere toy, and not at all the correct thing. Having this shelf in place, nail on your side pieces, both to the front piece, and to the shelf.

The roof requires a piece of thin board, two and a half inches wide, and four inches long, so that it will project one inch beyond the sides. Remember it must be put _between_ the side pieces, and on _top_ of the front piece, and nailed with brads.

TO MAKE THE DRIVING WHEELS.

The engine wheels are four in number, made by sawing from half-inch board four circles four inches in diameter, and from cigar-box wood an equal number four and a half inches in diameter. Each wheel is double, you see, to form the flange which keeps it on the track. Nail with little brads, each larger circle on to a smaller one, so that the former will project equally all around. Then bore a hole exactly in the middle of each, and your wheels are ready. With lath nails fasten one pair of wheels to the platform board at the side of the cab (flanges inside, of course), and the other pair to the same board in front, and so far that the rims of the two wheels on one side will be about two inches apart.

TO MAKE THE COW-CATCHER.

For this very important addition to the engine take a piece of wood three inches wide and two inches thick. Saw it on _both_ sides to a point (_fig. 7_). First shave it down on top so that it forms a sharp point at _b_, _fig. 7_. Then draw a line through the middle of the top (_a_ to _b_, _fig. 7_), and shave down each side so that it shall present a sharp edge all around from _c_ to _b_, and from _b_ to _d_ (_fig. 7_). Nail this to the front end of the platform board with inch-long brads.

TO MAKE THE TENDER.

This is very easily made of a cigar box, one of the low sort, the same width as your cars, but only half the height. Remove the cover and take out one end board. Put the box on a board a half-inch longer than itself, and finish with trucks as you did your cars.

At the back end of this tender—the closed end—fasten couplings like these on the cars, but to the engine it may be fastened by a common wire hook and eye. The hook being on the engine.

This completes your train, and if you wish to make a double track, you need only make your ties long enough to allow trains to pass, and then lay your tracks side by side.

With a little ingenuity, you can make bridges and tunnels, freight trains, and gravel trains, and can, in fact, increase your “rolling stock” to any extent.

I hope you will enjoy building this railway and train half as much as did the boys in the attic in New York City. With them the building and improving, the running of trains and the adding of new facilities, make a never-ending entertainment.

XVIII.—HOW TO MAKE A GOOD FLY.

FLY-FISHING is poetry; ordinary angling is prose. The latter looks to the catch; the former to skill shown in the capture. There is more sport in hooking and playing one single bass with a light pliant fly-rod, than in dragging in a dozen by mere muscular force. To cast a fly lightly to a chosen spot, to note instantly the swell indicative of a “rise,” to strike at once, but deliberately, to keep your rod bent, your line taut, and your fish in the water long enough to exhaust him, all require judgment, skill and self-control.

But after you have put up your rod for the season, you may still extract pleasure from mending your tackle, putting reel and rod in order, and last, but not least, in making a supply of artificial flies for future fishing.

The articles necessary for making flies are hooks, silk, white wax, silkworm-gut, tinsel-feather fibres—dubbing for the bodies of fur, wool, silk or feathers—hackles for legs, and larger feathers for wings.

First, get a good hook. The good hook is as sharp as a needle, and the barbed end points nearly exactly in a line with the end of the shank; not inside of the “line of pull,” _a_, _b_ (see fig. 1), lest the point come not in contact with the fish; nor too far out, lest the barb be pulled flatwise against the fish’s mouth, and thus not pierce it readily; nor exactly _in_ the line of pull, for, though in that case it would pierce anything between the point and end of shank, it might slip out without touching the unclosed jaws before the jaw had passed the line of pull. A point like _x_ would be bad, so would one like _z_; but one like _y_ would be about right. Now take the hook between the forefinger and thumb of your left hand, the shank pointing to your right, as in fig. 2. Say the end of a strong piece of silk, well waxed, on the hook near the bend, and, holding it firmly with your forefinger and thumb, wrap it tightly around the hook nearly to the end of the shank, as in fig. 3. Now coil a piece of silkworm-tug that has been soaked ten or fifteen minutes, and lay it on the hook with the coil to your right, and wrap it with your silk carefully and firmly down to the bend of the hook, cutting off the silkworm-gut a little before you get to the bend, so as to cover it well with the wrap, like fig. 4, at first; it looks like fig. 5 after wrapping. Now take two of the fibres of a peacock’s feather, technically known as peacock’s herl, and a piece of silver or gilt tinsel; lay the tinsel on near the bend, and then, after two wraps of the silk, lay on the two pieces of peacock’s herl, which must be fastened by two or three wraps, as in fig. 6. Now fasten in with a turn or two of the silk the dubbing for the body of the fly. Supposing it to be peacock’s herl, three or four pieces will do, as in fig. 7. Then take a hackle-feather, shaped like fig. 8, from the neck or rump of a gamecock or brown leghorn, and fasten in the point with three wraps of your silk, as in fig. 9.

You have now a hook, _a_, wrapped with well-waxed silk, _b_, with a piece of silkworm-gut, _c_, a piece of tinsel, _d_, two tail-pieces, _e, e_, dubbing for body, _f, f, f_ and hackle for legs, _g_.

Now for the wings. Strip off or cut from a hawk’s feather, like fig. 10, a clipping or two, like fig. 11, and fold it into a convenient width, and clip the ends square, like fig. 12. Lay them on the shank of the hook, butts to the left, points to the right, and fasten with three or four firm wraps, as in fig. 13. Now draw the silk under the wing, between them and the hook, to hold them temporarily, and going back to the bend of the hook, wind the dubbing, _f, f, f_ around the hook over and to your right as far as the root of the wings, leaving the hackle out; fasten the dubbing with one or two wraps, taking the silk from under the wing to do the wrapping. Next wind your tinsel _d_ up to the same point and fasten in same way. Now wind your hackle towards the right, twisting the quill as you wind to keep the fibres sticking outwards, and picking out any fibres that get entangled with a dubbing-needle (a needle stuck in a piece of soft pine, like fig. 14) and fasten. Now turn back the wings with the points to your left, towards the bend of the hook; fasten back with one or two wraps, passing the silk through an opening between the wings made by the dubbing-needle, to separate them. Finish by making two loose wraps, like fig. 15; then draw the silk through them tightly, like fig. 16. Touch this fastening with a drop of gum-shellac, and it will not slip or be affected by water. Gum-shellac dissolved in alcohol can be gotten at any drugstore, and should be rather thick. Your fly will now look like fig. 17.

Your flies should be _rough_ imitations of any water-flies you see in your tramps, in _color_ and _number_ of _parts_; outrageously colored flies will be taken by black bass, who seem to bite at anything that has the nearest apologies for body, wings and legs. All game-fish bite readily at a simple hackle wound from bend to shank around any attractively colored body in the form of a caterpillar; a good one for black bass is made with one reddish-brown hackle and two black ones; and a body of peacock’s herl wrapped with green or red silk is a good imitation of a caterpillar common here (in Virginia) in November.

Anglers also make something having no counterpart in nature—a winged hackle—by tying the hackle in a winged fly back from the bend to the end of shank—a sort of winged caterpillar. Some fish, no doubt, are affected by it as by a caterpillar; others as by a fly; others just strike out of curiosity, as a kitten plays with a ball. Should you buy your tackle, buy from tackle-makers who angle occasionally themselves. They know more “wrinkles” in their “line” in a day than ordinary makers learn in a year. Some of the best houses in Boston, New York and Baltimore derive their most valuable specialties from the presence of one or more actual anglers in the firms.

Water-flies have generally, like the Mayfly, fig. 18, a body, wings, legs, and tail-like appendages, technically, so you will not be far wrong if you make your fly have those parts, though fish bite at flies with less than these enumerated. For black bass, greens, yellows and reds seem the best colors, though white and black are often used. I like, however, flies that are combinations of bright and sober tints. A favorite fly with me has a body of peacock’s herl brown; wings, yellowish-white feather of chicken-hawk with discolorations on them; legs, a reddish-brown hackle from a gamecock or brown leghorn cock; tail-pieces, two fibres, like wings. I put a red streak in each wing. I call it the “academy,” after a school once under my care.

XIX.—HOW TO BIND MAGAZINES.

IT is often the case that in households where even several magazines are taken, that little money can be afforded for the purpose of binding them; and it follows that they are soon destroyed, or else stored away and never looked at. The pretty covers provided for most magazines by the publishers are of course preferable; but they also, of course, cost something. Therefore I have concluded to tell you of a durable, cheaper, and on the whole, pretty way of binding your yearly, or half-yearly volumes.

For several years we have made it a business to bind up our magazines every spring before cleaning house time; and we proudly exhibit to our friends our collections of neat, strong books which would look well in any library. We usually turn a corner of the living-room into a bindery, as we have no workshop.

We bring in the work-bench with vise attached, pile our magazines on it, sort them into volumes, remove the covers and advertising leaves, put the engravings in their proper places if they are not there, place each volume according to date or page, lay the title page and table of contents at the top of each pile, and there are our magazines ready to bind. We have meantime a little pot of good glue in readiness on the stove, which, after it is dissolved thoroughly, is better to be kept only warm. A little good twine, a few strips of strong cloth, about an inch wide, a handsaw, a pair of shears, and some of the old covers and leaves are also at hand on the bench. Also we have two bars of wood an inch thick, two or three inches wide, and about two feet long, fastened together at one or both ends (one end only is necessary if a vise is used) by a bolt five or six inches long—this is the press.

Now we take a volume of the magazines, lay an old cover on each side. Making sure that the numbers are perfectly even at the back and upper ends, we place them in the press with the backs projecting a quarter of an inch at least, placing them in the vise with the backs in a horizontal position (_see fig. 1_) and screw up pretty tightly. Then we saw into the backs as far as they project in three places (_fig. 1_). Next we dip a piece of cord into the glue, and wind it back and forth once or twice in the grooves made by the saw. This, as you will see, binds the volume firmly together.

Now we take as many strips of cloth as there are grooves, each about six inches long, and gluing them in the middle, place one in each groove (_see fig. 2_). Then we cut a strip of strong paper, and glue it on the back of the volume.

The book may be taken immediately from the press, though it is better to not handle it for a little while, and another set of numbers be put in. Several volumes may be bound in a short time, and if these directions are followed the binding is altogether as durable as that done at a bindery would be.

The next thing in order is to smooth the edges; this we do by placing each book in the vise again—the tighter the better now—front edges up at first, and projecting far enough to allow them to be made even. Now we rasp them off even with the press, with a coarse furniture rasp, or the side of a saw. Sometimes we leave it thus, and sometimes we spatter-work it by dipping an old toothbrush in ink and drawing it across a sharp edge of wood, allowing the spatters to fall on the book before it is taken from the vise. The ends we treated in the same manner.

Now we have a pile of books, without covers, to be sure, but even at this stage they are more available than if they are not bound at all. However, we provide covers without expense. We use old paste-board boxes for this purpose, cutting them a little larger than the volume they are intended for. We lay these covers in place, cover and fasten them by gluing the edges of the strips of cloth upon the _outside_ smoothly; the cover goes as far back as the cloth will permit. Then we make a cover of cloth for the back, usually using black or brown cambric, or selesia. The back cloth is always at best an inch longer than the covers, and about three inches wider than the back; we cut coarse twine into bits a trifle longer than the book is thick, using as many as we may choose.

We dip these twines in paste, one at a time, and lay them crosswise of the cloth, one at each end, at least, and just as far apart as the covers are long (_fig. 3._), laying the others between. Then we cut a strip of strong paper as wide as the cords are long, and just as long as the covers, and paste it over the cords, and then we paste the cloth down on the paper at the ends, and pin the completed back tightly around a stick—a broom handle is good—and let it remain there to dry. When we take it off we slip it over the back corners of the covers and fasten it strongly down with glue.

After this the covers may be finished as elaborately as you may choose; we bind the edges of most of ours with cloth, and then trim off the edges of some of the front covers of the magazines and paste them on. We make a pretty inside finish by laying in a double leaf of manilla paper, one half pasted to the inside of the cover the other being left as fly-leaf.

The freshly bound books should be piled with plenty of paper between them to absorb the moisture, with weights atop, until they are wholly dry. Shabby books may be made almost as good as new by smoothing the leaves, rebinding and recovering; and it is surprising to see how pretty bits of wrapping paper, and bits of brown, black, or gray cloth can be made to serve in this work; bits of leather may be used on the corners of covers. Sabbath-school papers, Lesson Quarterlies, etc., may thus be made into pretty volumes very easily. Five cents’ worth of glue will bind a great many volumes, and the gluing is a much easier and better way than sewing.

XX.—HOW TO PHOTOGRAPH.

NEARLY ten years ago I took lessons in landscape photography, and since then have made hundreds of photographs of places rarely visited, of strange people and wonderful vegetation, which have delighted the eyes of many friends. Assuming that many members of the Reading Union will wish to retain more permanent pictures of vacation scenes this summer than can be carried in memory alone, I propose to show how they can do this with little trouble and expense.

First, I must congratulate you upon your good fortune in being able to enter upon the study of photography in the year 1882, rather than twenty, or even ten, years earlier. In no other department of science, except perhaps in electricity, has such an advance been made. It was only in 1839 that Daguerre published his success in obtaining an image on a silver plate, and in 1851 that the collodion process—that most in use at the present day—was given to the world. But within the past few years improvements have been made, by means of which the art is not confined to professional workmen, but can be enjoyed by all the young folks in the land.

I well remember the disadvantages attending outdoor photography, even no longer ago than when I made my first attempts. By the collodion or wet process it was absolutely necessary to carry a large trunk full of chemicals and bulky apparatus. Among other things there was the “dark tent;” in its most compact form it was a box, about two feet and a half square, with curtains and aprons arranged so as to exclude all _actinic_ or chemical light. After setting your camera in position and focusing the picture, you had to retire into the dark tent, arrange the curtains about you to exclude all outside light, and consequently air, and then you coated the glass plate with collodion and dipped it into the “silver bath” to make it sensitive to light. This operation required several minutes, and if the day was hot and sultry, the operator in the dark box was nearly suffocated before he emerged with the prepared plate ready for the camera. After exposing this he was obliged to hide himself again in that hot box full of chemical fumes, and there “develop” the picture supposed to be upon the glass.

With the discovery that plates could be prepared ready for use at any time, and that would remain sensitive to the action of light for months, a new field was opened, in which any one could wander who had the inclination. By this discovery all the bottles of chemicals, with the dark tent and the clumsy apparatus, were done away with. Materials for a hundred photographs can now be carried in a small valise or in an ordinary trunk amongst clothes and books.

Though an amateur, and having no greater interest in photography than arose from a desire to secure pictures of the spots I visited, I hailed the appearance of the “dry plates” and their simpler mode of use, for I was heartily tired of the old way. My fingers were always black with silver stains, and my clothes streaked and stained with salts of iron and soda. My accidents, from the tipping over of chemicals, and in struggling over mountain roads and the beds of mountain torrents, were more than I could count on my fingers. In Florida, whenever I crawled into the dark tent—pitched, perhaps, on the border of a swamp or in the deep woods—the mosquitoes and sand-flies would make furious attacks upon my legs and nearly drive me wild, and I would be haunted by fear of the snakes and alligators that might attack me in that defenseless position—with my head in a sack and my hands employed. One day an enormous old billy-goat, taking offence at the outlandish appearance of my tent, as I was at work in it, half concealed from his view, charged on it with such force as to knock us all in a heap. When I had crawled out from the ruins, expecting to learn that an earthquake had passed by, I saw that billy-goat standing calmly by, chewing his cud, and shaking his head sidewise, as much as to say, “Get into that box again, and I’ll knock you over a second time!” In the West Indies it was always necessary to hire two negroes to carry my trunk, and as they invariably bore their burdens on their heads, the silver solution would sometimes leave a black streak down their faces, even darker than their ebony countenances!

The new discovery did away with all this trouble. I was quick to see this, and in one of my trips to the tropics carried a camera and a stock of “dry plates.” Alas! I had too hastily adopted a crude invention. I climbed mountains, descended into craters of volcanoes, threaded tangled thickets, and penetrated to secluded valleys to photograph new scenes with my new instrument. Having perfect faith in the new invention, I did not test my plates with chemicals on the spot, but kept them till I returned, and then gave them to the photographer to manipulate. My carelessness was well rewarded, for of the nearly one hundred plates, _not one_ contained a perfect picture. I was in a condition then to sympathize with the great Audubon, who had a trunk full of drawings, the result of a year’s labor, destroyed by mice.

Unlike him, I had not a sufficiently powerful incentive to repeat my travels, and the anticipated pictures were gone forever. Nothing daunted, I next year procured another machine and tried again, this time in Mexico. In that year the inventor had not been idle, and I informed myself upon the merits of his invention so that my results at the end of the journey were such as greatly pleased me and my friends; for from the plates of glass exposed to light in the camera flashed out fac-similes of strange idols of stone, grand old ruins, snow-capped volcanoes, valleys almost hid in dense vegetation, palms, tropical plants, and the picturesque features of that strange country.

But, without further preface, let me tell you how you may take pictures this summer without any of the hindrances that I had to encounter in my first attempts.

The first thing needed is a camera, which in its simplest form is a darkened box, with a lens in front, through which the scene is focused upon a plate in its back—a plate of glass prepared with chemicals so that its surface is sensitive to the light admitted through the lens.

A few seconds of time is generally sufficient for the transmission of an impression to this plate, and before and after that “exposure” it must be kept away from all light until the “latent image”—the picture we cannot yet see—has been brought out and “fixed” by means of chemicals. This forms the “negative,” which is to the finished photograph what an engraved block is to the engraving on paper. To obtain this negative is your first object; having got this, you may produce from it as many prints as you like, at very little cost, either by taking it to a photographer, or by continuing the process and printing them yourself.

While there are several instruments in the market with which the negative can be taken, most of them are so costly as to be beyond the reach of a boy or a girl with a limited supply of pocket money for a vacation trip; hence I shall choose one that is not only very cheap, but which I know by experiment will perform the work for which it is intended. It is the invention of a young man who has a practical knowledge of photography, and is called the “tourograph.”

At first sight it is a small mahogany box, eight by ten inches broad, with a strap by which one can carry it. But by pulling out a slide in front a lens is revealed; and by drawing out another slide on the top an inner box is shown full of negative plates. This smaller box is fitted in position on top of the larger one, so that the plates, one at a time, can be dropped into a carrying-rack turned by a screw, in the dark chamber below. This plate having been placed in focus, the lens is uncapped for a few seconds, then recapped, and the glass is returned to the box above, where it is kept till evening, or until a favorable time for development. In this way all the plates—eight or ten—in the box may be exposed, and their places filled with fresh ones later on.

The camera is supported upon a tripod, or three-legged stick, which can be closed up until not much larger than an alpenstock.

This is the outline of the mechanical operation necessary to secure the negative. The plates, being ready prepared and packed in little boxes of a dozen each, are transferred to the camera at night, or in a dark room by day, by the aid of a _red_ light. This is obtained by placing a roll of red or orange-colored paper—made expressly for this purpose—around a lamp or candle, as the light that shines through a medium of this color is _non-actinic_, or without the power to produce chemical change in the very sensitive plates. You now have a plate with a latent image of the picture you desire to retain; this plate must pass through a chemical operation before that image will appear.

Imagine yourself in a darkened room illuminated only by the _red_ light, with a plate in your hand on which you fondly hope there is a duplicate of the scene before which you had set up the instrument. To all appearances it is a plate of plain glass, one side covered with a film of gelatine, and if you hold it to the light nothing appears to indicate the change that has taken place in that film since it was exposed to the light. The question is, how to bring that picture out from its hiding-place. First, you must have a shallow pan at hand, and place yourself near a good supply of water. Into the pan you pour the chemicals previously mixed, necessary for the _development_ or bringing out of the hidden image. These chemicals are, oxalate of potash and protosulphate of iron. To simplify matters, the inventor of the tourograph puts up these chemicals in papers, so that you only have to put into four ounces, or a gill, of water[D] one paper of the potash and another of iron; mix well, and the solution is ready for the plate. This must be placed in the tray with the film side up, and the solution flowed over it. When completely covered, let it remain, and carefully watch the development.

[D] The operator should bear in mind that old saying, “A pint’s a pound, the world around,” then he will remember that it contains sixteen fluid ounces, four ounces to the gill, &c.

This is the period of greatest anxiety for the young operator, for it is the critical stage of the proceedings. A few seconds will determine whether you have a picture before you, or merely a square of plain glass. Gradually the details unfold themselves: the “high lights” or white portions first, then the “half tones” or grades of shadow, then the deeper shades of foliage or objects feebly lighted. When the view has come out distinct, seems to progress no farther and to gradually fade away to a deep brown, you have got out all it is possible to obtain from that exposure, and the plate must be removed from the solution, and chemical action arrested by washing in clear water.

Now you have before you tangible evidence of success, but your picture is not complete; it is dull, perhaps obscure, and if exposed to the light of day would quickly vanish. It must now _fixed_ in another solution and in another dish. The “fixing solution” is made by dissolving half an ounce of hyposulphite of soda in five or six ounces of water. Into this place the developed plate, and allow it to remain until all the whitish film is dissolved away. If both operations are faithfully performed you will have, on taking the plate from the solution and holding it to the light, a brilliant picture on glass—the _negative_—with all the lights and shadows reversed, the white portions quite opaque, and the dark parts almost transparent.

Now wash very thoroughly in clear water, beneath a tap if possible, or by pouring a gentle stream over the glass for a few minutes, in order to remove every trace of superfluous chemical substance that might work injury. As a precaution against the possible peeling of the film, it is well to dip the negative in a strong solution of alum and water, then wash again, and set up to dry in a slanting position, with the film side next the wall. When perfectly dry a coat of photographic varnish, furnished with the chemicals, is flowed over the coated side of the glass, and the impression is securely fixed, ready for use in printing. Having secured the negative, your object is virtually attained: the possession of a souvenir of a vacation ramble, a favorite view, or of a picturesque camping-place. If it were my negative, I should take it to some good photographer, and let him prepare from it the prints I wanted, as that expense is small, and involves a good deal of labor for the amateur. But I suppose my readers will wish—as I did years ago—to see the whole process, and to make their own prints or paper pictures.

PRINTING FROM THE NEGATIVE.

White paper coated with albumen is made sensitive to light by being floated upon a solution of chloride of silver in water; and this, when dry, is placed against the negative and exposed to the sun. In this way, by pressing the silvered surface of the paper against the film side of the negative, a duplicate impression of the picture on the glass is transferred to the paper. This may be repeated with other pieces of paper any number of times, until hundreds are obtained from the same negative. Instead of attempting to prepare the paper yourself, it would be better to purchase it already _sensitized_, which you can do of any dealer in photographic goods. A printing-frame, or grooved block with a spring back, is used in printing. After having placed it with the negative and paper in the sun, watch carefully. By removing the frame and retiring to a dark corner, you can examine the paper by unspringing _one-half_ the back at a time, and thus print to the degree desired. It is best to print a little darker than it is designed to have the print when finished, as it will bleach a little in the subsequent process of _toning_. This toning operation, as well as the cutting up of the paper, the placing of it on the negative and removing it, should be performed in a darkened room. When a sufficient number of prints are done, trim them the size they are to be when finished, wash in two or three changes of water, and then place in the “toning bath,” made as follows: Chloride of gold one grain, water ten ounces, saturated solution of bread soda three or four drops. This will change them to a deep bluish or purple color, and gives them that lovely tint we admire in fine photographs.

The chloride of gold is sent in solution, as well as the soda, so that you have but to follow the printed directions accompanying them, putting a certain quantity of each in the water, and your toning bath is at once prepared.

After toning for a few minutes, remove the prints, and place in another dish containing an ounce of hyposulphite of soda dissolved in a pint of water; allow them to remain ten minutes, and then remove and wash an hour or more in water—running water if possible—constantly changing the water and moving the prints about. Then dry your prints and the completed picture is before you, ready for mounting on a card, or pasting in an album.[E] If you wish to obtain merely a “proof,” or a fair print, without the delicacy of shading and tone of the silver print, you can do this with “blue paper,” by simply exposing this prepared paper beneath the negative, and washing and drying without any further toning or fixing.

[E] Many preparations are advertised for sticking the prints to the cards, but common starch paste is about as good as anything. Mix the starch in cold water, very thin, and then boil it, constantly stirring it to break up lumps, and remove from the fire soon as it reaches the boiling point. The prints should be wet and pasted on while quite moist, rubbing them down beneath a sheet of blotting-paper from the centre to the margin, in order to expel all air, that would otherwise cause lumps or wrinkles.

These, in brief, are the various processes necessary for procuring a photographic print; but, as I have already remarked, the negative being your main object, it would be much better to rest content with securing that, and depend upon some photographer to give you the paper impressions.

To recapitulate: For a short trip, fully equipped for taking photographs, we shall need the following:—

A “tourograph,” for plates 4×5 inches, with alpenstock
tripod and lens $15.00
One dozen 4×5 plates 1.00
One graduate (or measuring glass) .50
Two developing pans .40
One pound oxalate potash, in papers ready for use, 60 cents,
half pound protosulphate of iron, in papers, 10 cents .70
One pound hypo’ soda, in papers, 10 cents, six ounces
varnish, 50 cents .60
------
Sum total for apparatus and chemicals sufficient for
development of fifty negatives $18.20

If you will insist upon printing your own views, then you
will need in addition—one printing frame .60
One bottle chloride gold sufficient for a certain number
of prints as stated in directions with it, 50 cents, one
bottle bicarb, soda, 10 cents .60
Sensitized paper for one dozen prints .25
------
$1.45

In round numbers, for $20.00 you can be fully prepared to set up for yourself as an amateur photographer, and after many trials, with diligence and perseverance, can hope to secure photographs of scenery, interiors, and even portraits, that will compare favorably with the work of professional artists. The above is such an outfit—except that I had a larger camera and larger stock of plates—as I have carried to the West Indies and to Mexico.

Since my return, however, I find that my friend, the inventor, has produced yet another instrument, which he calls his “pocket camera,” which folds up into a small package but one inch and a half in thickness, and weighs but _twenty-four ounces_. This is so constructed that double plate-holders, each containing two dry plates, form the top, sides and back of the camera, and the entire outfit for the taking of eight negatives, sold for ten dollars.

It is only fair to state that other apparatus and outfits can be purchased at rates almost equally low, notably those of the Scovill Manufacturing Company, of New York, who furnish complete equipments from ten dollars up. While I recognize the excellence of these articles, I have selected the “tourograph,” as being something with which I have experimented, and likely, from its simplicity, to meet the wants of beginners.

Since the expense is reduced to so reasonable a sum, and the road is made so easy that any one can travel it, what boy or girl will be deterred from entering this fascinating domain of photography?

If you can secure some old room in the garret, or in some unused corner, cover the window with yellow or orange paper, excluding all other light, and take to it such simple chemicals and apparatus as I have indicated, then what a delightful world for experiment and research is opened to you!

The mysteries of photography; how the subtle changes are wrought by the potent salts and acids, under the influence of the sun, I cannot explain now. But following the outline I have sketched, the rest will appear as you get interested, and you will gain an insight into wonders hitherto unrevealed, and enjoy sensations to which the boys and girls of past generations have been strangers.

XXI.—ARCHERY FOR BOYS.

MR. MAURICE THOMPSON has excited all the grown-up boys who loved in their younger days to draw the bow, by his graceful articles on archery for young men and women.

I want to tell the boys who are wide awake how they may, without too much labor and with but little expense, make their own bows and arrows and targets, having _their_ fun, like their elders, in this health-giving and graceful recreation.

In the first place, after you have made your implements for the sport, you must never shoot at or towards anyone; nor must you ever shoot directly upwards. In the one case you may maim some one for life, and in the other you may put out your own eye as an acquaintance of the writer’s once did in Virginia.

To make a bow take a piece of any tough, elastic wood, as cedar, ash, sassafras or hickory, well-seasoned, about your own length. Trim it so as to taper gradually from the centre to the ends, keeping it flat, at first, until you have it as in this sketch-for a boy, say, five feet in height: (Fig. A)

This represents a bow five feet long, one and a quarter inches broad in the middle, three-fourths of an inch thick at the centre, and a half-inch scant at the ends in breadth and thickness.

Bend the bow across your knee, pulling back both ends, one in each hand, the centre against your knee, and see whether it is easily bent, and whether it springs readily back to its original position. If so your bow is about the right size. Cut near each end the notch for the string as in this figure: (Fig. B.)

Bevel the side of the bow which is to be held towards you, so that a section of your bow will look like this figure: (Fig. C.)

The back or flat part is held from you in shooting, and the bevelled or rounded part towards you. Scrape the bow with glass and smooth it with sandpaper.

To shape your bow lay it on a stout, flat piece of timber, and drive five ten-penny nails in the timber, one at the centre of your bow, and the others as in figure below, so as to bend the ends for about six inches in a direction contrary to the direction in which you draw the bow: (Fig. D.)

Your bow is now finished as far as the woodwork is concerned, and you may proceed to wrap it from end to end with silk or colored twine, increasing its elasticity and improving the appearance. The ends of the wrap must be concealed as in wrapping a fish-hook. Glue with Spaulding’s glue a piece of velvet or even red flannel around the middle to mark your handhold. The ends may in like manner be ornamented by glueing colored pieces upon them.

A hempen string, whipped in the middle with colored silk, to mark the place for your arrow nock to be put, in shooting, will make a very good string.

For arrows any light, tough wood, which splits straight, will do. I use white pine, which may be gotten from an ordinary store-box, and for hunting-arrows seasoned hickory. These must be trimmed straight and true, until they are in thickness about the size of ordinary cedar pencils, from twenty-five to twenty-eight inches in length. They must be feathered and weighted either with lead or copper, or by fastening on sharp awl-points or steel arrow-points with wire.

I used to make six different kinds; a simple copper-wrap, a blunt leaden head, a sharp leaden head like a minie bullet, an awl-point wrapped with copper wire and soldered, and a broad-head hunting-arrow.

To make a copper wrap, wrap with copper wire the last half-inch of the arrow until you get near the end, then lay a needle as large as your wire obliquely along the arrow as in this figure: (Fig. E.) Continue the wrapping until you have weighted the arrow sufficiently; draw out the needle and thrust the end of your wire through the little passage kept by the needle, and draw it tight thus: (Fig. F.)

A blunt leaden head is made by pouring three or four melted buck-shot into a cylinder of paper, wrapped around the end of the arrow, slightly larger at the open end, and tied on by a piece of thread. The wood of the arrow must be cut thus: (Fig. H.)

The paper is put on thus: (Fig. X.)

It should look like this after the metal has been poured in and the paper all stripped off. (Fig. I.)

It should look like this after being sharpened like a minie bullet: (Fig. J.)

An awl-point arrow is made by inserting the point in the end of the arrow, wrapping with copper wire, and getting a tinner to drop some solder at the end to fasten the wire and awl-point firmly together. The awl-point looks like this: (Fig. K.)

The awls (like Fig. L) are filed like this into teeth-like notches on the part going into the wood, and roundly sharp on the other part thus: (Fig. M.) These may be shot into an oak-tree and extracted by a twist of the hand close to the arrow-point.

The broad-head hunting-point (Fig. N) is put on by slitting the arrow and inserting the flat handle of the arrow point, and wrapping it with silk, sinews, or copper wire. These points can be sharpened along the line A B on a whetstone, and will cut like knives. The hunting arrow looks like this: (Fig. O.)

To feather an arrow you strip a goose feather from the quill and, after clipping off the part near the quill-end, you mark a line down the arrow from a point one inch from the nock and, spreading some Spaulding’s glue along that line apply the feather, lightly pressing it home with forefinger and thumb. After you have glued on one piece lay aside the arrow and fix another, and so on until the first is set, so that you may put on another piece. When you have fastened these feathers on each arrow lay them aside for ten or twelve hours. The three feathers will look like this: (Fig. P.)

A boy can hardly make a good quiver unless he were to kill some furred animal and make a cylindrical case such as the Indians have, out of its skin. I am afraid that he usually would have to get a harness-maker to make him a quiver out of leather, somewhat larger at the top than at the bottom. It should hold from eight to twelve arrows.

A good target may be made of soft pine, circular or elliptical in shape. In the latter case a line-shot might count, even though it were farther from the centre. Pieces should be tacked to the back of this target at right angles to the grain of the wood. Differently-colored circles or rings, a little more than the width of an arrow, must be painted on this, with a centre twice the width of an arrow. The outer ring counts one, the next two, three, four and so on to the centre, which of course counts highest. By this plan one’s score could be told with perfect accuracy.

If an arrow struck on a line between number three and four it counts three and a half. Anything like this rarely happens. The target is fixed upon an easel formed of three pieces of wood fastened together by a string at the top, and it ought to lean back at the top slightly, away from the archer.

The three arrows count seven, nine, ten—twenty-six in all. In target-shooting you should use awl-pointed, wire-wrapped arrows, as they can be easily drawn out of even a wooden target.

XXII.—SIR WALTER SCOTT’S IDEA.

SOME years ago, while reading Lockhart’s _Life of Sir Walter Scott_, I came across a passage, in the autobiographical part, which struck me as so suggestive that I copied it; and here I copy it again, after which I will say my little say on the subject (it was when he was a youth, you know):