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by Robert H. Moulton

EN years ago the highest development of the "magic lantern," or stereopticon slide was the photographic transparency-usually plain black and white, but sometimes tinted to show the natural colors of the object represented. When a lecturer could show a series of such colored views of unusual subjects, he had reached the then existing limit in the field of projected pictures. Then came the moving picture machine, with its long roll of revolving film impressions, by means of which people, animals and other objects in motion. could be reproduced with wonderful fidelity to nature. Since that time numerous inventors have exercised their ingenuity to perfect a device that would enable one to reproduce the same effect of motion with a single stationary slide. A recent invention called the genre

motion slide seems destined to fulfill the demand for such an article. In particular it will be welcomed by the many amateur owners of stereopticons who find the expensive moving picture films beyond their reach, while as a means for advertising it will no doubt prove as valuable as the moving electric sign. Not only is this slide cheaper for the average user than the film rolls, but it also costs the maker considerably less, inasmuch as it does away with the necessity of employing a large company of people to act out before the camera scenes and plays such as are commonly shown at the moving picture theaters.

The public has become so educated to the moving picture idea that the motionless views of a few years ago now create but little interest. Since it has been shown that people can be made to pass in review before us on a screen and do

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HOW THE NEW CINEMATOGRAPH IS OPERATED.

The composite picture is made from the three photographs shown on the preceding page. A vertically ruled glass. placed over the plate containing the composite photograph, and manipulated from side to side, produces the "motion picture" effect.

almost everything that they do in real life except talk aloud, no one. cares any longer to see mere representations of "still life." Action and speed are as much expected and demanded today in the amusement line as in any other. Just as the bicycle has been superseded within the last few years by the swifter motor car, so has the old fashioned lantern slide given way to the quickly moving rolls of film with their constantly changing and lifelike action.

The moving electric light signs such as are commonly used in front of theaters, restaurants and stores furnish another illustration of the fact that any object which is shown in motion will catch the eye quicker and hold the attention. closer than the same thing when shown in repose. The first electric advertising signs attracted so much attention and were such a great improvement over the ordinary painted sign that they soon came into general use. But their value as an advertising medium was increased. many times over when a way was discovered to give the lights an appearance of motion. This is done, not by making the lights actually move, but by switching the current from one set of globes to another in such a way that they seem to do so. Some of these signs are

really quite wonderful examples of realism.

The cost of a moving picture machine is very little more than that of a first class stereopticon for motionless views, and they are quite as easily handled; but the price of the film rolls, due to the elaborate processes employed in their manufacture, confines their use principally to theaters and professional lecturers. In the case of the theaters a single roll of film may serve to entertain hundreds of audiences in as many different houses. Coming from a central depot or manufacturing establishment they travel from one theater to another, from city to city and from state to state until they are literally worn out, or become too antiquated in subject to appeal to even a provincial audience. Thus the original cost of the film is divided up among many users.

The genre motion slide is a medium between the ordinary lantern slide and the moving picture film. That is, it is a single stationary slide which not only shows a picture of an object, but by means of a very simple contrivance, enables the operator to give the picture perfect motions. That such an effect could be produced with a single slide seems incredible. But it has been done;

and while the new slide offers opportunity for further improvement, it is already sufficiently developed to meet all ordinary requirements.

The common form of lantern slide, which shows a single picture of an object, consists of a glass plate on which is printed a photographic positive. In the case of a building or landscape only one view, of course, is necessary. But to show the successive attitudes accompanying the movements of a man or an animal it is necessary that a series of pictures be taken, the different exposures on the revolving film occupying less than a thousandth part of a second each. It is manifestly impossible that the impressions of all these negatives could be printed in the ordinary way on a single plate and show anything else than a dreadful tangle of lines and curves. The result of doing so would be like a photographer's "double exposure," only very much worse. only way to show separately each of the individual pictures printed on such a plate would be to blot out all save one at a time. And this is exactly what the new motion slide does. The secret, of course, lies in the manner of printing.

a perfectly lifelike appearance of motion. Of course, the number of postures of a subject that may be shown on one of these slides is limited. No effort has yet been made to combine more than three, but it is not too much to expect that a way will yet be found to do so. Three positions, however, if judiciously selected will impart to the picture the same natural movements that occur in the long rolls of revolving film. The only difference is that the motions are repeated in the case of the slide. For instance, the picture of a baby can be made to smile, laugh and cry by turns, one expression changing to

THE CARRIER IS FITTED WITH AN ECCENTRIC. By means of this, the ruled plate is moved to right and left.

The

Three negatives are first made, but instead of printing from them in the ordinary way, each one is first ruled with a series of very fine vertical lines. A composite plate is then made from the ruled negatives. This plate somewhat resembles a mosaic in appearance, only instead of being broken up into small irregular particles it is composed of even and parallel sections. A second perfectly plain plate is then ruled like the composite plate, the lines being placed at such a distance apart that they will cover at one time two of the sections of the latter, leaving the third section visible. By moving the second plate from one side to the other, first one then another of the pictures on the composite plate is revealed, and if

an

other with perfect naturalness; a small boy is shown going through a series of gymnastics, playing at marbles, or representing George Washington in his immortal act of cutting down. the cherry tree;

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and the antics of a clown at the circus are reproduced accurately. curately. In fact, any subject that lends itself to the moving picture films may be shown on the motion slides.

Another fe ture of these slides that will commend itself is the fact that the pictures used on them do not necessarily call for the services of living models, but may be made from a series of drawings in which the subject is represented in various attitudes. The effect is just as natural, and may be made even more amusing than where living subjects are employed. To see a Teddy bear turning cart wheels, or a monkey engaged in the act of pulling a suffering lion's tooth is something that no moving picture machine could ever reproduce. But on the motion slide such scenes are limited only by the artist's imagination.

The only thing necessary to show the motion slides in an ordinary lantern is a special carrier. This is fitted with an attachment in the shape of a small eccentric which is used to move the plainly ruled plate evenly and with the required

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FOR NATURE'S SECRETS

By

CHARLES FREDERICK CARTER

WOW does a young loggerhead turtle, thrown upon its own resources in a selfish world from the moment it leaves the egg-shell, know where to go to take up the struggle for existence with any prospect of success?

Davenport Hooker has found out the answer to this conundrum. Equipped with a quantity of glass of different colors he went to the Dry Tortugas where he put in a lot of time placing the glass in front of young turtles. When they saw the ocean through red, yellow or green glass they would not move toward the water; but when they saw it through blue glass, or when they saw the blue glass or even blue paper, they crawled toward it with evident excitement. Hence, Mr. Hooker concludes, the turtle's sense of color guides it to its

natural element. Imagine the predicament of a color-blind turtle!

On these islets in the Gulf of Mexico, about seventy miles from Key West, where the United States Government entertained a large party of Southern gentlemen nearly fifty years ago, the Carnegie Institution of Washington now keeps open house for scientific gentlemen from various parts of the world. Here the scientists eat canned goods while they study original problems in marine biology, or else they study marine biology while they eat canned goods, I have forgotten which. Anyhow, it is one way or the other.

Many sensational disclosures have emanated from those glistening white sands since the biological station was established. It is now known that not only are loggerhead turtles possessed of

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a sense of color but that the gray snapper is similarly equipped. The scientific squad played a mean trick on the gray snappers which the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would do well to look into. The snappers were tempted into developing a taste for sardines dyed red. When this Lad been accomplished some sardines were loaded by placing tentacles of the medusa in their mouths.

"Stung again," exclaimed the snappers as they dropped the loaded sardines. Thereafter the snappers would not touch a red sardine, no matter how hungry they were, thus showing that they knew a thing or two.

On the other hand, all colors look alike to the ghost crab, though it readily perceives moving objects and is sensitive to large differences in the intensity of light. But it is deaf as a post, its so-called "auditory organs" being in reality organs of equilibration. In spite of its handicaps the ghost crab has memory and, like the gray snapper, can profit by experience, which is more than some people can do.

Prof. John B. Watson, making his headquarters at the marine biological station, was able to pry into the domestic affairs of the noddy and sooty tern on Bird Key. He reared the young birds. and found that they could learn to find their way through a maze to their food.

The adults could also learn to overcome obstacles in seeking to sit upon the egg. The noddy builds its nest in bushes, and in doing so is quite shy; but if an egg be placed in the nest it loses all shyness and sits upon the egg as if it were its own. Both male and female build the nest, but the male alone procures food for both during this period, the female constantly guarding the nest. After the egg is laid male and female fly away to fish, taking their turns at brooding the egg at intervals of about two hours. The egg hatches after thirty-two to thirty-five days of incubation. The noddy does not recognize its own egg but will cheerfully incubate anything that looks somewhat like an egg. It recognizes the locality of its nest and returns to the old locality if the nest be moved, but it will accept an artificial nest placed in the old locality without hesitation. The sooty tern nests upon the ground and recognizes the exact locality of its nest; if the nest be raised vertically, the bird readily alights upon it; then if, after an interval, the nest is lowered the bird attempts to alight in the air in the place where the nest was formerly. A slight horizontal movement of the nest causes great confusion to the bird.

Birds taken from Bird Key to Cape Hatteras, eight hundred and fifty miles.

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AT THIS PLACE WAS ANSWERED THE QUESTION: "HOW DOES A NEW-BORN TURTLE

KNOW WHERE TO GO?"

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