The Optical Magic Lantern Journal (August 1889)

i oe eer Tho Optioal Magic Lantern Journal and Photographio Enlargor. 21 and agreed to, Livingstone stipulating that it was not to be in one of the “stuck-up” first-class places, but in some quiet place where we could feel at home, and accordingly we adjourned to hotel. In the course of the after-dinner conversation the traveller incidentally remarked to Bryson that he must call on his brother, the optician, about his magic lantern, and in answer to a question as to what he could want with a lantern in the centre of Africa, he stated that it was his most valuable travelling friend— his bread-winner, in fact, as whenever his party got short of supplies, he had only to send word around that he was going to show the pzctures, when the people would flock from far and near, each bringing a contribution in kind, and he added that they enjoyed : the treat like so many children. In answer to further | questions, he said they {were best pleased with the funny slides, more especially if they were the moving ones, and gaudily coloured; they also took great interest in the black silhouette slides. In the course of further chat he stated ithat they were inveterate gossips, and the speed?:with which news was circulated was astonishing. In every village there are many trained young fellows, active runners, who do little else than carry tidings from one townlet to another, and who can keep up an untiring trot for a whole day when necessary. It was, he said, something of the kind of thing Sir Walter Scott describes in the “ Lady of the Lake,” in sending young Malise round with the Fiery Cross, and in an incredibly short space of time a wide area was informed of whatever was going on. 7 Of course, it was an oil lantern which was used, and he stated that he never ran short of oil, as the natives made capital burning oil, as. he jocularly remarked, “Quite as good as your best paraffin, Young, and much sweeter scented.” I do not think this has ever been published, and it may help to throw a side-light on a homely aspect of the great African explorer. Edinburgh. W. Hz. D. ——_+~»+___ Flashes on Lantern Topics. IN “Selections,” one is quoted from Ed. Muybridge, but it must be taken with the proverbial grain of salt, while it may serve to draw attention to the fact that too close attention to one subject tends to narrow the mentalvision. It is true that in the tombs and sepulchred chambers of Egypt there are many well-preserved mural paintings, and among them there are some which depict animals in motion, but the date of those pictures—taking the most extreme computation—can at the earliest be only put as far back as Menes, the proto king of Egypt ; and he is mentioned as, at least, four dynasties before the pyramids. The furthest back period [ find for him is about 7,000 years before the Christian era; but those speculative dates are much like the geological epochs—a mere guess. In the ‘Eons, before the Egyptian civilization had even begun to take shape, the prehistoric artist of the glacial period had carved on the horns, bones, and tusks of the animals of the period—the woolly or hairy elephant, the mammoth, the giant elk, and others of his class— similitudes of the animals they caught and killed. The drawing and spirited action depicted by those prehistoric artists would do no discredit to the untrained artists of to-day, and then to think of the poor tools they had to carve the ivory, the horn, and the bone. Veriiy, the true artist’s spirit was there, otherwise the figures of the animals in motion, even to the extent of showing them in death struggles after the chase, could not have come to us as they are. If Mr. Muybridge is doubtful of this, let him look up the antiquarian museums of this old Europe of ours, specially those of Scandinavia, Britain, and France, and he will find that the earliest depicted examples of animals in motion are not to be found in Africa, but in Europe, and are of a date long before Egyptian civilization had yet taken shape. In this connection, any London readers will find in Calder Marshall, R.A.’s, noble marble piece of statuary a lesson that will not soon be forgotten by anyone having the slightest artistic feeling. There is a copy of it in the South Kensington Museum; the title is “The Prehistoric Artist.” Megascope-—More than twenty years ago one form of this instrument was made use of at one or two of the meetings of that society which has done so much to popularise the use of the Optical Lantern. I allude to the ‘Edinburgh Photographic.” It proved a great success ; but to work it properly requires considerable lantern experience. Black Grounds for Statuary Slides.—The late Dr. Strethill Wright, M.D., F.R.C.S., and of the Microscopical and many other societies, when making slides of the infusoria and other objects of that class, used to employ carefully smoked glass, and on this with the point of a fine needle he used to draw or etch many of the most difficult of the forms seen with the microscope. When finished, the dust was puffed away, and over it was then flowed an exceedingly thin varnish, just sufficient to fix the dry carbon or soot. The covering glass had narrow strips of paper pasted round the outside edges, and occasionally he coated the inside surface of this glass with transparent coloured varnishes. The effect was very beautiful. Would this method as adapted for the purpose not suit well for the opaque backgrounds of photos of statuary? One thing iscertain, if a slip is made it is very easily corrected with a taper, or rather smoke from one that is lighted. BULLS-EYE.