The best of all photographic mouutants is starch. Place a teaspoonful of crushed starch in a teacup and mix into a thin cream with cold water, then, whilst stirring, add boiling water till the starch thickens. Allow to cool, remove the skin from the top, and the starch is ready for use. When more than two days old it does not answer well. The following have also been recommended, and will keep a considerable time.

No. 1

Dissolve 1 oz. of white dextrine in 3 oz. of water, add 1 oz. of powdered starch, and strain; then warm until the solution becomes clear. Now add about 10 gr. of white sugar and about half a dram of a 10 per cent, solution of carbolic acid.

No. 2

Soak 1 oz. of gelatine in 4 oz. of water for an hour or so, then add 1/2 oz. of chloral hydrate, keeping the solution hot during this addition. Or a good plan is to dissolve the chloral hydrate in a portion of the water, and then add whilst hot. A few drops of a saturated solution of carbonate of soda should be added to render it faintly alkaline. This mountant is extremely adhesive and does not penetrate the paper, so that it is specially suitable for mounting glazed prints, which lose some of their brilliancy when the mountant is very wet.