September 1, 1897.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



m 



the earlier workers, studying first in the excellent little 

 " Zoo " at Lissa, and later, when he had obtained the 

 recognition of the Government, in the Gardens in Berlin. 

 For the display of "living pictures" he designed an 

 " electric tachyscope," in which the successive phases of a 

 motion were mounted near the edge of a circular disc of 

 glass. This revolved behind a small spy-hole with a lens 

 inserted, and as each little picture passed behind the lens 

 it was momentarily illuminated by an electric Hash. Fitted 

 up as " penny-in-the-slot " machines, these tachyscopes 

 were shown in shops along the Strand and Oxford Street, 

 and also at some of our popular seaside resorts, four or five 

 years ago. Anschiitz arranged, also, at the World's Fair 

 in Chicago, 1893, a theatre for what we now know as a 

 display of kinetography, or " living pictures." 



Long after these workers had solved the problem of kine- 

 tography — after our own English worker, Friese Greene, 

 had taken out a patent and shown his apparatus at St. 

 James's Hall (in July, 1889) — the great American exploiter, 

 Thomas Alva Edison, took up the subject. As he himself 

 says, his business is not with pure science or abstract 

 investigation, but with the application of scientific prin- 

 ciples, new or old, to the requirements of the public. In 

 kinetography, as in many other things, he pieced together 

 and popularized the work of other men, and reaped the 

 benefit. His notion was to combine the " living pictures " 

 with the loud-speaking phonograph record, so that the 

 actions and the words of a popular speaker or a troupe of 

 actors might be simultaneously reproduced an indefinite 

 number of times. 



At the same time, the brothers A. and M. Lumiere, in 

 Paris, and Birt Acres, in London, were working on the 

 same problem, and almost simultaneously three machines, 

 differing in detail, but accomplishing the same object, were 

 introduced to the public. Edison was in the most advanced 

 state of preparation, and his production of results, with 

 the newspaper " booming " which any of his work is sure 

 to receive, rather forced the hands of the others. Their 

 advent, as we all know, led to the designing of a host of 

 machines — good, bad, and indifferent — for the projection of 

 " living pictures," and the popularity of the subject led to the 

 production of many badly executed pictures and the em- 

 ployment of many incompetent operators — with the result 

 that the reputation of the process has suffered. 



Kinetography is based upon the principle of the well- 

 known zoetrope, or wheel of life, in which a series of 

 pictures representing the successive phases of an action 

 are ranged round the inside of a drum and viewed through 

 a series of slits from the opposite outer side of the drum. 

 As each slit passes the eye it gives a clear glimpse of the 

 figure momentarily opposite to it, and the blackened part 

 of the drum between the slits shuts out the view of the 

 picture while it is moving along, and until the succeeding 

 one has taken its place. In the kinetographic lantern the 

 same effect of movement is obtained by photographing 

 upon a strip of sensitive celluloid film a series of rapidly 

 succeeding phases of motion, and projecting the series of 

 pictures in rapid succession upon a lantern screen. The 

 strip of film on which the pictures are made is an inch and 

 a quarter wide by fifiy or seventy-five feet long, or even 

 longer. Each side of the film bears a row of holes to fit 

 the sprockets of the wheels by which it is driven, and 

 between these rows of holes is a long succession of tiny 

 pictures seven-eighths by five-eighths of an inch. Tlie 

 machines for passing these strips in front of the light from 

 the lantern are very varied, and amongst them include 

 almost every possible mechanical motion whereby a strip 

 of flexible material can be rapidly and alternately moved 

 forward and stopped. 



During the moment when the strip is moving forward 

 to bring the succeeding picture into play, the light is cut 

 oft' from the screen by means of a shutter. Hence the picture 

 on the screen is really a quick succession of images, 

 each one different from the preceding, and between each 

 image and the next is a period of darkness. This rapid 

 succession of light and shade is the cause of the " flicker " 

 which is one of the drawbacks of kinetographic exhibitions, 

 and which is often mistaken for unsteadiness of the 

 picture. In the early days, owing to imperfect machines, 

 and especially to irregularities m the perforations, the 

 objects were apt to dance about the screen in a most 

 erratic fashion. In a modern exhibition, though there 

 is still the flicker, there is no excuse for vibration. 



It may be said that the problem of last year was to get 

 rid of vibration ; of this year it is to overcome " flicker." 

 Attempts have been made in the past, but with only 

 partial success. Translucent and perforated shutters have 

 been used, so that the light is not entirely cut off from the 

 screen while the pictures are being changed. But the gain 

 in one direction is more than lost in another, for any 

 mixture of indefinite light with the screen image has the 

 effect of so much fog. The best success has been attained 

 by changing movements which leave each picture steadily 

 on the screen for the longest possible, and make the 

 change of pictures in the shortest possible, time. Amongst 

 the patents taken out for machines which will be on the 

 market this winter, are three (at least) which promise to 

 completely overcome "flicker." It is obvious to anyone who 

 studies the matter for a time that the simple solution o£ 

 the problem is to use two films, exposing them alternately 

 when making the original kinetograms, and projecting the 

 images in a double lantern, in such a way that one picture 

 is always on the screen while the alternate film is changing. 

 This method works perfectly, but, unfortunately, it involves 

 immensely more cost and more skill in operation, so that 

 it is not considered within the realm of practical kineto- 

 graphy. To show the successive pictures of one single 

 film in such a way that there is always one projected upon 

 the screen, and no changing of a picture while it is being 

 projected, seems impossible. Yet it can be done, in more 

 ways than one ; and it is only because the ingenious 

 inventors of these methods have communicated them to 

 me in confidence, and because their applications for patents 

 are still pending, that I do not explain the means. Suffice 

 it to say that there is every reason to believe that the 

 coming winter will see " flicker" overcome ; and that with 

 the use of but one tilm and one lantern. 



Of the future of kinetography I need say little. It 

 seems certain that as an adjunct to the optical lantern the 

 kinetographic lantern will be indispensable to every popular 

 lecturer ; and I hear that a strong syndicate of able business 

 men propose to open a theatre in London where every 

 British event of importance will be shown in ' ' living picture" 

 on the evening of the day of its occurrence, and where the 

 great events of the world, such as the Grseco-Turkish war, 

 wUl be reproduced through the labours of "special" kineto- 

 graphers. 



Of the scientific applications I have already briefly 

 spoken ; there are just two others to which reference must 

 be made. Some time ago Dr. Macintyre, of Glasgow, 

 secured the first kinetographic radiogram, which enables 

 him to show to a class of students the movement of the 

 bones in the leg of a living frog. In hew York, Dr. Robert 

 L. \Yatkins has overcome the great difliculties of kineto- 

 graphing microscopic objects, and has made pictures of 

 rotifers in movement at the enormous tpeed of two thousand 

 five himdred pictures a minute. As it is possible to projeet- 

 these at much lower speeds, one becomes able to study the 



