LIGHT. 87 



he is likely to have at hand. The beam of light from 

 the porte lumiere is directed upon the object <?, which 

 should be a small one : a doll dressed in white, or even 

 the outline of one cut in white paper. The light from 

 it will of course be scattered from it in all directions. 

 A pane of white glass r will receive some of these rays, 

 and reflect them toward J, where they will appear to 

 come from o' . If the object o is a puppet or a moving 

 figure of any sort, it can be made quite a good phan- 

 tom, though diminutive. The glass r can be moved so 

 as to give every one in the room a view of the phenom- 

 enon, while the hand put up to o' will reveal the shad- 

 owy nature of what is seen. 



Of course all extraneous light should be shut out by 

 having the window curtains tightly drawn, and also 

 with black cloth about the apparatus to absorb all the 

 scattered rays, especially about o and o' . 



Obviously, a lantern at / could take the place of the 

 sunbeam, but the light needs always to be a very strong 

 one, for but a fraction of the light is reflected from the 

 object, and this is again largely reduced by transmis- 

 sion through the glass j nevertheless, as the light is 

 used at the distance of but a foot or two from the ob- 

 ject, it can be lighted sufficiently well for a small room 

 in the night with an oil lantern like Marcy's Sciopticon. 



