The Optical Magic Lantern Journal (March 1895)

46 The Optical Magic Lantern Journal and Photographic Enlarger. for making joinings with set-screws, so that the picture isa homogeneous cycloramic scene without possible discovery of points of joining. The pictures are coloured by the ‘‘ Nature Process,” the invention of David P. Breed, of Pittsburg, Pa., and when thrown upon the screen the effect is even more grand than the cycloramic paintings seen about the country. An electric lighting power of 25,000 candles is used in projecting the scenes, and photographers need not be told that details are much more perfect than the best painting ever produced, and with colours the effect is enchanting. In one entertainment the scene changes by the turn of an electric switch—daylight, sunlight, and moonlight effects follow in succession —moving boats, moving clouds from real cloud negatives—search lights appear to make it more real (supposing the scene to be the World’s Fair). There are no seats for the audience, the people are on the move, they are a portion of the scene as if they are travelling in the land | viewed. In photographing these scenes I take them with the Marcellus camera from a point not over ten feet from the ground, usually in an open space, for foreground effects, trying to imitate the view naturally taken in by the eve. Therefore when the scene is projected upon the | screen the floor upon which the spectators stand runs right off into the scene, and it is so real that it seems as if we could step right out into the country viewed. ——10; Simpson’s Automatic Lantern. Lecturers who find it a difficult matter to obtain the services of an operator who will exactly coincide with their methods of working, will rejoice to know that such services can be dispensed with, and that they can, by using a lantern of the kind illustrated herewith, operate the lantern themselves, and this, too, if necessary, from the far end of the hall, all that is required being a slight pressure by the foot on a lever not unlike the handle of a pair of household ne bellows, such pressure causing an opalescent sereen to quickly rise behind the objective, and as quickly descend, revealing a new picture on the screen, the lime having been, during the : moment of obscurity, slightly rotated. This ingeneous lantern is the invention of Mr. Simpson of Liverpool, who has lent it to us for exhibition in our office where it now stands, and may be inspected by appointment. The tubing connecting the lecturer with the lantern is filled with water, and the slides are placed in the endless carrier 38, in which they are held by springs. The mode of action will be readily understood from Figs. I. and II., the former representing the ; instrument during the time that a picture is on the screen, and the latter the action of changing the slide. In both the drawings, the same parts are indicated by the same figures of reference, | and the cylinder in which the piston works and the bellows are shown in section. 1 is the lantern; 2 condenser, so modified that the normal position of the slide 3 when | properly illuminated is, as shcwn, some distance in front of the condenser. 4 the lens and 5 a hood covering in the space between the slide 6 the triangular spindle carrying and the lens. in the chain of slide-carriers; and the ratchet wheel 7 which operates it has three teeth and moves through an angle of 120 degrees each time the slide is changed. The ratchet wheel is operated by the horizontal movement of the swinging pawl 8 carried on the bar 9 which is a prolongation of the piston