[gainer]

In point of fact, the borax that I used in these later experimental developers was the photo grade from Photographers' Formulary. My main interest at this time has shifted from borax to glycerol. I had been using it as a solvent at time when I had no propylene glycol at hand. At room temperature, it seems to serve as well except for the higher viscosity for the preparation of higly concentrated stocks like PC-Glycol. It occurred to me that the high solubility of borax in gylcerol would allow a single solution concentrate of Phenidone, ascorbic acid and borax in glycerol. I am pretty sure that in the process of heating the mixture for faster solution to between 250 and 300 F I did form the glycerol borate. The pH of the working solution was considerably lower than I would have gotten from a water only solution of the same small amounts of Phenidone, ascorbic acid and borax.

The 1+25 working solution of the glycerol stock seems to have buffering properties, as the addition of fairly large amounts of borax produces little change of pH, which stays below that of a 0.1N borax solution. The resulting developer is quite good, but slow.

There is also a glycerol sulfate, which gave me the idea test the solubility of Metol in glycerol. I have dissolved, with heating, 10 grams each of Metol and ascorbic acid in 180 ml of drugstore glycerol, which is nearly anhydrous and of medicinal quality.