and dress. The small nigrivorine erasers are used when it is necessary to remove the crayon, in order to produce small decided lights—principally in making free-hand crayons and to produce the line effects over a platinum and silver enlargement. While the stumps are used for putting on the crayon, the erasers are used to remove it. The chamois is also used for removing the crayon, to produce broad effects of light.

The cotton is for applying the crayon sauce to the paper and for rubbing the crayon at different stages in the completion of the picture. The crayon cannot be removed with the eraser unless it has first been rubbed with the cotton; and this must be borne in mind, as the use of the eraser at this stage would only result in making a black line or spot, when it was intended to produce a white line or spot.

It will also be well to make a chamois block for applying the crayon sauce, to be worked with the tortillon stump. This is done by tacking onto a block, four inches long, two inches wide and three-quarters of an inch thick, a piece of chamois skin, three inches wide by five inches long, allowing it to cover the top, while it is fastened along the four edges. This is placed face down in the box of crayon sauce and rubbed around in it, so that the crayon will adhere thoroughly to the chamois.

Emery paper is used to sharpen the nigrivorine erasers and the crayon points.

The knife, which is a very important tool, should be a good one, always kept well sharpened. The best for this work is an ink eraser, with a rounding point, a long edge on one side of the blade and a short one on the other side, extending about an inch from the point.

The mortar and pestle are for pounding or grinding the Conte crayon No. 1 and the crayon sauce, in making the special crayon sauce mentioned above.

The paste-board box is intended to hold this special crayon sauce or the Peerless sauce.

The back-boards are one inch thick, made to fit the back of the strainer (described in the next chapter), and are used in mounting. It will be necessary to have three different sizes, the most useful being 11×15, 15×19 and 19×24 inches, to fit, respectively, strainers measuring 16×20, 20×24, 24×29 and 25×30 inches.

The pliers should be either what is known as shoe-maker's pliers (which are the cheapest) or the canvas pliers, used in stretching that material; they are needed to stretch the cloth on the strainer.

The pulverized pumice stone is used in preparing the surface of crayon paper and bromide enlargements, to produce the stipple effect.

THE STRAINER.

The strainer, on which crayon paper or any kind of photographic enlargement is to be mounted, should be the same size as the intended picture. The frame is made of four strips of pine wood, two inches wide, one inch thick on the outside, and three quarter inch on the inside, making a quarter inch bevel on the inside edge of the face; these are nailed together and glued. To this, tack a piece of bleached muslin, free from knots and rough places, which has been cut two inches larger each way than the frame. Use six ounce Swede upholsterers' tacks, placing one in the centre of the outside edge of one side and another directly opposite, stretching the muslin as firmly as possible with the fingers. Then place a third tack in the centre of the outside edge of the top, and a fourth in the centre of the bottom of the frame, stretching as before. In finishing, use the pliers in addition to the fingers, and remember that you must always stretch from the centre towards the corner or you will have wrinkles in the muslin. As this process should be thoroughly understood, I will give minute directions for completing the operation. Having already placed the four tacks as above, stand the strainer on its bottom edge on the floor, with the back towards you, and put in the fifth tack two inches to the right of the third, that is, the one on the top previously mentioned. Instead of stretching the muslin directly back in a straight line towards you and at right angles to the fourth tack, you must draw it with the fingers towards the right hand corner. Then finish stretching, and tacking this edge to the right hand corner of the top, placing the tacks two inches apart and taking care to only draw the cloth sufficiently to have it perfectly smooth and straight on the edges, leaving the stretching to be done with the pliers; then turn the strainer on the side edge and tack at two inch intervals from the centre of the other (that is the upper) side to the right hand corner, same as before, and then tack half of the bottom edge and half of the other side in the same way. You will observe that you now have only one half of the muslin tacked—that is, one half on each edge—and you then complete the tacking, using the pliers to thoroughly stretch the muslin. This method has the advantage that you can stretch the muslin on the strainer and get it on better and in less than half the time required by the old method; also that you stretch the whole surface of the muslin with the pliers, and do it with only half the work.

MOUNTING CRAYON PAPER AND PLATINUM
AND SILVER ENLARGEMENTS.

Wet in clean water a piece of muslin about two inches larger each way than the paper you intend to mount, and lay it on the mounting board or table, removing all the wrinkles with a wet brush; then place the paper on this cloth, face down, and with some water and a brush, wet the back of the paper, continuing to use the brush until all the wrinkles are entirely smoothed out and the paper lies down perfectly flat. Any number of pieces of paper can be wet at the same time by placing one over the other, provided the larger sizes are laid down first and each is brushed out flat before another is placed over it. Let the paper soak for about fifteen minutes.

After having removed the surplus water from the paper with a cloth, sponge or squeegee, apply starch paste to the paper with a paste brush, going over it thoroughly, until it has received an even coat of paste free from lumps. Then lay one of the back-boards on a table and, having placed the strainer down on it face up, give the cloth of the latter a coat of paste, using the same care you did in going over the paper, taking pains to have the edges of the cloth well pasted, and to remove, by passing your finger all around the outside edges of the strainer, any paste which may be there. Now pick the paper up and place it on the pasted surface of the strainer, which an assistant should hold tipped towards you. (The help of an assistant will be found almost indispensable in mounting). After the paper is in the proper place, lay the strainer down and secure each corner of the paper, by first lifting it slightly and then rubbing it down with a clean cloth from the direction of the centre towards the corner you have lifted up. With a sharp knife trim off the edges of the paper and set it away to dry, but neither near a fire nor in too cold a place. You can very often save the remounting of a paper by occasionally glancing at it as it dries and by gently rubbing down a little with the fingers any places that look as if they would not stick. Very often the paper will be all right with the exception of this difficulty at one edge or corner. This is invariably the lower part, and is caused by the water settling there. It is therefore advisable to change the position of the strainer two or three times as it dries, letting it stand on different edges.

After the paper is dry, if there are any places that have refused to stick fast to the cloth, it will be