THE MECHANISM 



OF 



INSTANTANEOUS PHOTOGRAPHY. 



BY 



WILLIAM DENNIS MAEKS, Ph.B.C.E., 



WHITNEY PROFESSOR OF DYNAMICAL ENGINEERING UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



A CAEEFUL search through the files of the Bt^itish Journal of 

 Photography, The Photographic News, and other analogous papers, 

 reveals such an endless variety of ingenious devices for instanta- 

 neous shutters and their appurtenances as will at once prevent 

 even an attempt at a chronological reference to them. 



We are forced, by lack of space, to content ourselves by refer- 

 ring those interested to these papers, and to the published writings 

 of Marey, Pickering, and Bowditch. 



In the brief description of Professor Eakins's apparatus, here- 

 after given, we have all that Marey has used, with additions 

 perfecting it greatly. 



Professor Pickering has published two interesting papers on 

 instantaneous photography. One is published in the Proceedings 

 of the American Academy of Science, January 14, 1885; the other, 

 describing a tuning-fork method of measuring exposures, was pub- 

 lished in Science, November 14, 1884. It is, however, with the 

 work of Mr. Eadweard Muy bridge we shall principally concern 

 ourselves. His work, covering a period of years and involving 

 an almost incredible amount of pertinacious labor, required on 

 his part, and the part of the committee and his assistants, the cre- 

 ation of an elaborate and complicated series of machines, hitherto 

 untried or tried unsuccessfully, and which, furthermore, demanded 

 that skill on their part that can only come from long practice in 

 their use. 



No small part of the success of this work is due to the patience 



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