126 SCIOPTICON MANUAL. 



"For a parlor or school exhibition, it may well take 

 the place of the far more troublesome oxy-calcium lan- 

 tern, which it rivals in efficiency. 



" There are many details of construction which are of 

 very ingenious and efficient character, among which we 

 would specially notice the slide for pictures, by which, 

 one picture being in use, another may be removed and 

 exchanged, and then, by a single movement, brought 

 into the field, while the other is in like manner ready 

 for substitution." 



THE MAGIC LANTERN FROM 1650 TO 1870. 



[From the Scientific American.] 



"The invention of the Magic Lantern dates back to 

 1650, and is attributed to Professor Kircher, a German 

 philosopher of rare talents and extensive reputation. 

 The instrument is simple and familiar. It is a form of 

 the microscope. The shadows cast by the object are, 

 by means of lenses, focused upon something capable of 

 reflection , such as a wall or screen . No essential changes 

 in the principles of construction have been made since 

 the time of Kircher; but the modern improvements in 

 lenses, lights, and pictures have raised the character of 

 the instrument from that of a mere toy to an apparatus 

 of the highest utility. By its employment the most 

 wonderful forms of creation, invisible, perhaps, to the 

 eye, are not only revealed, but reproduced in gigantic 

 proportions, with all the marvelous truth of nature itself. 

 The success of some of the most celebrated demonstra- 

 tions of Faraday, Tyndall, Doremus, Morton, and others, 

 was due to the skilful use of the Magic Lantern. As an 

 educator, the employment of this instrument is rapidly 

 extending. No school apparatus is complete without it; 



