206 THE BOOK OF THE LANTERN. 



great deal of patience and practice before success is 

 attained. The requisites are good photographic transpa- 

 rencies on glass, and a good optical lantern wherewith to 

 exhibit them. 



The lantern method of showing photographs has the ob- 

 vious advantage that a large number can at the same time 

 view the same picture under the best conditions. They can 

 exchange opinions as to its merits, and can point out little 

 bits of detail which would be almost invisible in a paper 

 print from the original small negative. A great many 

 amateurs, too, take only small negatives. They do not care 

 to be burdened in their rambles with a large camera, 

 which, with its inevitable dark slides or changing box, 

 forms a very heavy travelling companion. Many, there- 

 fore, are wise enough to content themselves with either a 

 quarter-plate apparatus, or one which gives pictures mea- 

 suring 5 by 4 inches. Prints from these small negatives 

 are rather insignificant when mounted in an album, but 

 such negatives are just what are required for lantern trans- 

 parency making ; so that the tourist with his little camera 

 is, with the help of the lantern, placed on the same footing 

 as the toiler with large and heavy .apparatus. He can in- 

 crease the size of his pictures, or rather the images of such 

 pictures, to any reasonable extent. I know of an amateur 

 photographer who spent three months on a Mediterranean 

 tour. He took with him a quarter-plate camera, and its 

 accessories, together with a stock of gelatine plates. He 

 brought back with him about one hundred and fifty capital 

 negatives, which were taken in Algeria, Tunis, Malta., 

 Sicily, and Southern Italy. On his arrival in England 



