SCIOPTICON MANUAL. 167 



it lacks some of the peculiar mystification of dissolving, so 

 pleasing to the uninitiated, and, indeed, so essential to cer- 

 tain effect slides showing the change of seasons, the vicissi- 

 tudes of day and night, etc. yet its operation is natural and 

 agreeable, and regarded with growing favor ; and we have 

 its advantages in a single instrument, simple and conve- 

 nient, compact and tidy, efficient and comparatively inex- 

 pensive. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE AUTOMATIC WINKER. 



It will be seen that the flap or opaque plate a, Fig. 43, 

 when raised close to the light K t will cut off all the rays 

 from the lenses, and darken the screen as completely as a 

 larger flap at a distance, and that its small size and its posi- 

 tion enable it to be operated by a very slight movement. 

 This flap is held by arms b b, which, at c c, are bent so as 

 to pass out through holes in the lantern body, and prolonged 

 downward, forming on the left (not shown) a long lever by 

 which the flap may be raised by hand, limited by a button 

 and moderated by friction, and forming on the right a short 

 lever s, automatically worked by the movement of the slides 

 themselves, as they are changed. 



The short lever-arm s, of the stop a, is freely attached to a 

 light framework, consisting of a thin strip of brass /, fas- 

 tened to wires r and g g, the latter bent at t into a right 

 angle. This frame, attached to the lever s, is held by the 

 staple e and the rest o, whose spring allows its ready inser- 

 tion or removal. It slides horizontally, in a direction paral- 

 lel to the lantern body, and so operates the lever s, which 

 lifts the flap a. The brass strip / is bent at its free end into 

 a V-shaped latch h, the point of which is outward, and 

 which extends in breadth almost across the opening for the 

 insertion of slides into the slide-frame. The slide-frame 

 consists of two parallel strips H H l y Fig. 44, connected 



