Popular Science Monthly 



odS^ 



screwed home. Bedded thus in soft putty 

 and kept taut by the spring tension, it is 

 impossible for the glass to 

 break, even under the 

 severest strain imposed by 

 snow, ice, rain, or heat. 



Inside the torch are fif- 

 teen five-hundred candle- 

 power incandescent lamps 

 connected with a flasher (a 

 flasher is a rotating drum 

 with surface projections 

 which close the lamp cir- 

 cuits every time they hit 

 a stationary piece of metal) 

 to carry out the unsteady 

 flicker and blaze of the 

 burning torch. The torch 

 also contains a lighthouse 

 lens, nine .and one half 

 inches in diameter and 

 fifteen inches deep. 



Super-Daylight for the 

 Motion-Picture Man 



ONLY those who have visited a motion- 

 picture studio and have watched the 

 actors rehearsing under a battery of 

 mercury-arcs, can realize the important 

 relation of light to the successful photo- 

 graphing of an indoor stage scene, or, as 

 the motion-picture folk call it, a "set." 

 There is not only lavish, blinding light, but 

 sweltering heat; for the lamps are veritable 

 furnaces. 



In one of the New York motion-picture 



There are fifteen of these five- 

 hundred candlepower lamps in- 

 side the torch of the Statue 



studios, which is situated on the top of a 

 glass-covered fireproof building, a gigantic 

 overhead lighting system 

 costing fifty thousand dol- 

 lars was recently installed. 

 The system comprises 

 twenty-five overhead units 

 of mercivry-arcs. These 

 units run on five tracks, 

 with eleven contact spaces 

 to each track, indicated by 

 white paint. By shifting 

 a unit a few inches either 

 way light is obtained for 

 the deepest sets. 



The steel tracks sup- 

 porting the overhead lights 

 are nine feet apart and one 

 hundred and seventy feet 

 long. In addition to this 

 overhead system the gen- 

 eral lighting equipment of 

 the studio is supplemented 

 by another battery of floor 

 lights. When all the lights 

 are going at one time, 

 "super-daylight," according to the enthusi- 

 astic and imaginative director, is obtained. 

 When a play is being rehearsed an auto- 

 matic switch enables the director to turn 

 off the big batteries and substitute in their 

 place incandescent bulbs. In the studio in 

 which this vast ligTiting equipment is em- 

 ployed fi\-e directors can photograph as 

 many sets at the same time. The stage 

 is seventy feet wide and one hundred and 

 seventy feet long. 



Close-up view of the portable contact and carrying device. Contact spaces in the 

 trolley feeders are indicated by white paint. There are twenty-five overhead units of 

 mercury-arcs which run on five tracks, with eleven contact spaces allotted to each track 



