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usual size. Partly because of this their pictures were far better than anything the rest of us could obtain and it rather looked for a time as if their method would have to come into general use. But the clumsy size and great cost proved their undoing in the end, and the smaller films, constantly growing brighter and better, soon had the field to themselves.
The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, to give them their full name, seem to have started with an ingenious viewing device in opposition to the 'Kinetoscope' of Edison. It was an attractive-looking instrument for a drawing-room table, not at all large or clumsy. A long series of pictures in consecutive movement as in a cinematograph film, but all separate paper photographs mounted on cards, was arranged to be 'flipped' over one after another when the handle of the instrument was turned. I am only guessing now because I did not come on to the scene until later, but I imagine that in order to produce these paper pictures a long multiple negative was made upon film and the paper prints made from it. When the popularity of the 'Mutoscope' began to wane it would be natural for the company to turn their attention to the 'projection' of transparent films made from these negatives and to design a projector for that purpose. However, that is what they did and that, I suppose, is why they used so large a film: for their negatives had to be large enough to make the paper prints of suitable size for the 'Mutoscope.'
That, as I see it, is how the 'Biograph' came into being as a separate entity. The film was unique in having no perforations to steer it through the camera or projector, but used an ingenious device which I described and illustrated in my book, The A.B.C. of the Cinematograph, published in 1897 by Hazell, Watson and Viney. Don't ask me to lend a copy for I haven't got one. It has been out of print for half a century and I lent my only copy years ago to a 'lady' journalist with several valuable photographs and other things, none of which she ever returned in spite of my pleading.
I must, however, I think, venture upon one point which was of some importance in this connection. The original Edison films, used, it will be remembered, only for peep-show purposes and not for projection upon a screen, had four pairs of holes for each picture or 'frame' and were drawn through the apparatus by sprocket-wheels engaging in these perforations. The pictures were not steady because the perforations were not very accurately
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