ers, the writer has
for the last few years used a "Volute" with general satisfaction, though
in the great cold even that shutter (from which all trace of grease or
oil was carefully removed by the makers) is somewhat slowed up, so that
a rare exposure at 50 deg. or 60 deg. below zero would be made at an indicated
speed of one fiftieth rather than at one twenty-fifth, taking the chance
of an under-exposed rather than a blurred negative. To wish for a
shutter of absolute correctness and of absolute dependability under all
circumstances, arranged for exposures of one fifteenth and one twentieth
as well as one tenth and one twenty-fifth, is probably to wish for the
unobtainable.

[Sidenote: CARE OF FILMS AND CAMERAS]

The care of the camera and the films, exposed and unexposed, the winter
through, when travelling on the Alaskan trail, is a very important and
very simple matter, though not generally learned until many negatives
have been spoiled and sometimes lenses injured. It may be summed up in
one general rule--keep instrument and films always outdoors.

One unfamiliar with arctic conditions would not suppose that much
trouble would be caused by that arch-enemy of all photographic
preparations and apparatus--damp, in a country where the thermometer
rarely goes above freezing the winter through; and that is a just
conclusion provided such things be kept in the natural temperature,
outdoors. But consider the great range of temperature when the
thermometer stands at -50 deg. outdoors, and, say, 75 deg. indoors. Here is a
difference of 125 deg.. Anything wooden or metallic, especially anything
metallic, brought into the house immediately condenses the moisture with
which the warm interior atmosphere is laden and becomes in a few moments
covered with frost. Gradually, as the article assumes the temperature of
the room, the frost melts, the water is absorbed, and the damage is done
as surely as though it had been soused in a bucket. If it be necessary
to take camera and films indoors for an interior view--which one does
somewhat reluctantly--the films must be taken at once to the stove and
the camera only very gradually; leaving the latter on the floor, the
coldest part of the room, for a while and shifting its position nearer
and nearer until the frost it has accumulated begins to melt, whereupon
it should be placed close to the heat that the water may evaporate as
fast as it forms.

Outdoors, camera and films alike are p