We put the world before you by means of the Bioscope and Urban films (Nov 1903)

89 Unanimous opinion of the Press and Public : "SIMPLY MARVELLOUS. "Daily Telegraph," August 18th, 1903. Science has just added a new marvel to the marvellous powers of the Bioscope. A few years ago it was thought sufficiently wonderful to show the picture of a frog jumping. Go to the Alhambra this week and you may see upon the screen the blood circulating in that same frog's foot. This sounds a trifle incredible, but it is an exact statement of the truth. The new miracle lias been performed by the adaptation of the microscope to the camera which takes the Bioscope films. Last night The Charles Urban Trading Co., Ltd , who has taken the photographs, had many other miracles to show and explain to a fascinated audience. There was a blood-curdling picture of cheese-mites taking their walks abroad, the tiny creatures looking on the screen as large as small crabs. The minute hydra which lives in stagnant water appeared shooting out its tentacles and taking a meal. Even what was officially described as "the protoplasm of the water weed," the life-fluids coursing through the veins of a tiny piece of leaf, were clearly seen — a photograph winch, by 'be way, involved a marvellous degree of magnification. The lightning dart of a chameleon's tongue and a snake's fangs were shown in two fine pictures, and as a bonne bouche for the last all the industry and the household work of the bee were given as clearly as any procession that ever walked. Twenty-five minutes, the length of ihe exhibition, is along time to give to a Bioscope turn, but the rapt attention of the audience and the thunders of applause at the conclusion testified to the way in which popularity had been at once secured by these unique pictures. " Mornino Post," August 18th, 1903. There was introduced into the programme at the Alhambra last night one of the most interesting and certainly one of the most striking turns that has been seen at a variety theatre for a long time. By means of a new machine called the Micro-bioscope, a very marked development in "animated photography," there was thrown on to a screen a number of pictures showing life at its. most minute stage. There were moving pictures of cheese mites, toads, chameleons, tortoises, and snakes as they live and move and have their being, and even pictures of parts of these creatures showing the circulation of their blood. One picture, which was stated to be magnified on the screen to a scale of (JO, (100, 000 diameters, showed even the movements ot the protoplasm of the Canadian water-weed. Some of these v iews were to the amateur in natural history rather horrible, notably one of a toad eating worms and another of two toads fighting and grabbing at .each other's eyee, but they were succeeded by a series of fifteen pictures dealing with the life of the bee which were sufficiently charming to have engaged the admiration of M. Maeterlinck, sufficiently instructive to have pleased Dr. Watts, and sufficiently wonderful to excite the marvel of a world. One sees the bees in the most intimate relations of their lives, making the comb, depositing the honey, feeding the lavrse; sees them at times when it is impossible to believe any longer that they do not consciously reason, as when on a flower being dropped at the entrance of a hive five or six of them rush down and carry it out of the way ; and sees them as a community working, working, always working, and always for the good of the State As a music ball turn last night's production was an unqualified success. People like to be interested, and they don't in the least mind being interested by something worth knowing, if only someone will provide it for them, And surely the performance must also show that the usefulness of animated pictures is not limited to amusement, but that developed on considered lines it must be of value to science, not only as an automatic and unerring record of experiments, but as a potent aid in the dissemination of knowledge. "The Era,'' August 22nd, 1903. One of the most curious, attractive, and extraordinary exhibitions which have been presented to the public by the aid of that ingenious invention the Cinematograph was introduced to a delighted audience at the Alhambra on Monday evening. The .Micro-bioscope series which were photographed bj the Charles Urban Trading Company, Limited, whose premises in Rupert-street have been called "The World's Animated Picture Headquarters." One of the earlier views shows the mites in cheese. We see the little creatures, magnified into monstrous white crabs, hurrying to and fro, agitating their feelers, and seeming "all legs and hairs." Then we are introduced to the great American