The photoplay; a psychological study (1916)

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THE PHOTOPLAY or the magic cylinder of tlie zootrope and bio- scope. The child who made his zootrope re- volve and looked through the slits of the black cover in the drum saw through every slit the drawing of a dog in one particular position. Yet as the twenty-four slits passed the eye, the twenty-four different positions blended into one continuous jumping movement of the poodle. But this so-called stroboscopic phenome- non, however interesting it was, seemed to offer hardly any difficulty. The friends of the zootrope surely knew another little play- thing, the thaumatrope. Dr. Paris had in- vented it in 1827. It shows two pictures, one on the front, one on the rear side of a card. As soon as the card is quickly revolved about a central axis, the two pictures fuse into one. If a horse is on one side and a rider on the other, if a cage is on one and a bird on the other, we see the rider on the horse and the bird in the cage. It cannot be otherwise. It is simply the result of the positive after- images. If at dark we twirl a glowing joss stick in a circle, we do not see one point mov- ing from place to place, but we see a continu- ous circular line. It is nowhere broken be- 58