APPARATUS FOR FROTHING ALBUMEN.

To The EDITOR.

SIR,--Seeing in one of your former numbers a description of a machine for frothing albumen, which, however efficient, must be too complicated, cumbersome, and expensive for the generality of photographers, I thought a description. of a simple apparatus which I always use might be acceptable.

It consists of a rod of wood, about one foot long and three-quarters of an inch in diameter, one end of which is slit crosswise for two or three inches; into the slits are inserted slips of quill, the ends of which project from the cylinder an inch or more. In this simple form, suggested to me by a friend, the beater end inserted into a jug with a narrow neck or wide mouthed bottle containing the albumen mixture, the upper part of the red is made to rotate between the flat hands, and thus the albumen is cut and beaten smooth.

I have made the thing more effective by adding a handle flattened at one end. A pin driven into the top of the rod passes loosely through the handle; above the handle a small sheave wheel is driven tight on the pin, and carries the cord of a drill-bow, by means of which the rod is made to rotate very swiftly, thus saving time and labour.

Another plan I might suggest, viz., that any one possessing an Archimedian drill--stock, a tool generally useful in mechanics, might very easily adapt to it a beater of the kind described.

I give above a diagram of the instrument, lest my description should not be intelligible without it.-I am, yours, &c.,

Cheltenham, April 29, 1859. G.S. PENNY.