21 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[September 1, 1897. 



of a TiTid and rational imagination so as to produce images wliich 

 tend to persist. Being of a fragmentary character, and lacking con- 

 tinuity, its cliief Talue seems to attach to tlie fact that on a few 

 special aspects of astronomy — such as the star depths, star gauging, 

 lost comets, seeming waste in nature, etc. — the author in these 

 essays was able to amplify his views without restraint. 



A Text-Book on Shades and ShaiJows and Perspective. Bv John 

 E. Hill. (Chapman & Hall.)' Illustrated. 8s. fid. net. Tlie art 

 of projection has many and varied applications. To give any object 

 the appearance of reality, certain conventions are employed. Even 

 fleeting shadows arc useful in completing pictures, and the student 

 of descriptive geometry usually begins the clothing of his line pro- 

 jections of, for example, a square pyramid on a square pedestal by 

 tilling in the complete visible shadow — the incident rays being 

 supposed to impinge on the object in a given direction. How to do 

 this sort of thing is well described by Mr. Hill, but it is very 

 aggravating to find all the figures at the end of the book when 

 they might have been inserted in the text, so as to give infinitely 

 more satisfaction to those seeking aid therefrom. The price of the 

 book is much too heavy. 



Our Weights and Measures. By H. J. Chaney. (Eyre & 

 Spottiswoode.) Illustrated. 7s. 6d. In this attractive volume an 

 attempt has been made to indicate what is now the practice in the 

 use of our various weights and measures, eitlier in trade or for the 

 purposes of manufacture, without, however, offering any opinion on 

 questions affecting the construction and administration of the law 

 which governs the practice. Origin of the imperial system, in- 

 spection of trade weights and measures, measurement of land, 

 electrical standards, metric system, jiharmaceutical weights and 

 measures, etc., etc., are included, and indeed almost everything of 

 prime importance in this department of knowledge. There aremany 

 first-rate collot\pe plates, sheets of lithographs, and numerous 

 woodcuts, depicting every phase of the subject. 



The Illemtnts of Pti'i/sics. Tnl. III.—Li</hf and Sound. By 

 Edw. L. Nichols and W. S. Franklin. (Macmillan.) Illustrated. 

 We have already noticed previous parts of tliis work, and the voliuue 

 now in hand quite sustains the reputation of its predecessors. A 

 multitude of simple figures — mere blackboard sketches — in outline, 

 and very skilfidly executed for conveying ideas, form, in our opinion, 

 the most pleasing and useful feature of this volume. The complete 

 absence of pictorial presentments of the regular lecture and laboratory 

 appliances is not of much consequence to students of regular college 

 courses of instruction, but it is, we think, a circumscribing fence 

 which will, to some extent, limit the field of its usefulness. 



We liave received some handsome specimens of pictures of all 

 sorts reproduced from original drawings and photographs by means 

 of the "Autoeopyist," a piece of manifolding apparatus. As one 

 look< at the wonderfully collotype-like presentments of objects — 

 animals, landscapes, architectural forms, and the like — it is almost 

 past belief that such artistic effects can be squeezed out of an 

 ordinary copying press. To faitlifully reproduce handwriting and 

 pen-and-ink sketches in outline is an everyday piece of routine which 

 calls for no special remark here ; but to turn out, in the way indicated, 

 reproductions of photographs which can barely be distinguished 

 from the originals, is an achievement which requires only to be seen 

 to be appreciated - all the distinguishing features of silver, bromide, 

 and platinotype prints being very closely imitated. 



BOOKS EECEIVED. 



Lessons in Elemeniarii Biology. Hy T. Jeffery Parker, D,Se., 

 F.E.S. {Macmillan.) Illustrated. 10s. 6d. 



Segisfer of E.ramination llesul/s for Teai'hers. By James 

 M'Cubbin, B.A. (Bell,) Is, net. ' , ' 



llomhury and its Waters. By N, E. Yorke-Davies. (Sampson 

 Low, Marston, & Co.) Is, 6d. 



Tlieorq of Electricitg and Magnetism. By Charles Emerson Curry, 

 Ph.D. (Macmillan.) Illustrated. 8s. Cd."net. 



Euclid: Books I. -I r. By Rupert Deakin, M. A. (Clive.) Illus- 

 trated. 2s. 6d. 



The Tutorial Trigonometry. Bv W. Briggs, M.A., and G. II. 

 Bryan, D.Sc, F R.3." (Clive.) 3s.'6d. 



Tables for Computation of Star Constants. As Arranged by E. J. 

 Stone and Revised by H. H. Turner. (Frowde.) 2s. 



The Process Year Book for 1897. (Penrose & Co.) Illustrat<?d. 

 23. 6d. 



Practical Astrology. By Alan Leo. (Office of Modern Astro- 

 logy, Bonverie Street,'E,C.) ' Illustrated. 3s. 6d, 



The Epic of Sounds : an Interpretation of Wagner's " Xiehehtngen 

 Sinr/." By Freda Winworth. (Lippincott.) Illustrated. Ss. 6d. 



The A B C of the" X" Says. By Wm. H. Meadowcroft. (Simp- 

 kin.) Illustrated. 4s. 



Volcanoes of Sorth America. By Israel C. Russell. (Macmillan.) 

 Illastrated. 169. net. 



Comparative Anatomy of Tertehrates. By Dr. Wiedersheim.' 

 Translated by W. N. Parker, Ph.D. (Macmillan.) Illustrated. 

 12s. 6d. net. 



Forty-fourth Report of the Department of Science and Art. 

 (Eyre & Spottiswoode.) 2s. 7d. 



KINETOGRAPHY: THE PRODUCTION OF 

 "LIVING PICTURES." 



By H. Snowdex W.\rd, F.R.P.S., Editor of The Photogram. 



LAST winter saw tbe " living pictures " adopted as 

 the craze of the season for music-halls, bazaars, 

 and variety entertainments generally ; the coming 

 winter bids fair to establish the same class of 

 work as a recognized aid to scientific investiga- 

 tion, and especially to teaching. Not that tbe music-halls 

 discovered the process, for long before it was known by 

 the public, kinetography, under various titles, did admirable 

 scientific work in the hands of Marey, Anschiitz, Muybridge, 

 and others. 



In the popular mind the invention of " living pictures " 

 is generally attributed to Edison ; in the scientific mind to 

 Marey or Muybridge ; and few are aware that in 1864 the 

 idea was protected by two French patents in the name of 

 LouisDucos dullauron. The principles involved were stated 

 in a paper communicated live years earlier, by the same 

 worker, to the Society of Sciences and Arts at Agen ; and 

 it seems curious that not only this process, but also the 

 three-colour method of " photography in natural colours," 

 should have been worked out by one man— a man who 

 has received but little credit for his labours. 



Just as the three-colour work was checked and hindered 

 for want of the colour-sensitive plates which we now 

 possess, the "living pictures" were long confined to the realm 

 of scientific curiosities for want of the sensitive dry-plate 

 emulsions and the transparent flexible supports which are 

 now in the hands of everyone. 



The seeds sown by Du Hauron were biding their time, 

 and many men were ready, as each step was made in 

 photographic invention, to apply the new-found powers to 

 the perfecting of his ideas. Fortunately for kinetography, 

 the earliest workers to develop its possibilities were not 

 mere mountebanks or showmen, but patient scientific 

 investigators, led by a love of truth. For many years 

 threemen — Marey, Muybridge, and Anschiitz — weresteadily 

 investigating the laws and phenomena of animal move- 

 ment, their results appearing in the form of scientific 

 monograms, books, and lectures, first of a purely technical, 

 and latterly of a more popular nature. 



Marey worked, first, in a private capacity, and in a small 

 way, but latterly, for the bulk of his valuable work, has 

 had the support of the city of Paris, with the use and 

 control of its physiological station. His observations on 

 a host of questions of motion, interesting to hydraulic 

 and civil engineers, naval and military experts, artists, 

 naturalists, and physiologists, are most accessible to British 

 readers in his book, " Movement," published in 1805 by 

 Wm. Heinemann, 21, Bedford .Street, London. 



Eadweard Muybridge, of Philadelphia, worked in his 

 own way, simultaneously with Marey, and the chief result 

 of his efforts was an enormous series of studies, many of 

 them in large sizes, which he ofi'ered for subscription to 

 the great libraries and colleges of the world. His course 

 of lectures, too, delivered in the United States and in 

 Britain, did much to direct the attention of the public to 

 the fascination and the practical utility of this method of 

 studying motion. 



Ottomar Anschiitz, of Lissa, Posen, though perhaps not 

 quite so early as Marey and Muybridge, was still one of 



