The Optical Magic Lantern Journal (March 1898)

The Optical Magic Lantern Journal and Photographic Enlarger. 45 not to make it absolutely necessary that a film | should be wound off on a bobbin; although useful, it is not always effective and convenient. The metal case as I suggest is far preferable | and absolutely safe. Rule No. 5 should be withdrawn as a useless one, for how could cinematograph pictures be seen with effect if the electric light is glaring in the space where the machine stands. With regard to their rules regulating the use | of gas cylinders, many of the precautions are | perfectly unnecessary. If they were to insist that no other cylinders be used but those tested and filled by Brin’s Oxygen Company, each cylinder having their registered mark upon it should be sufficient guarantee for the most timid and fastidious, their system being perfect. Again, no gas cylinder should be sanctioned to be used without a reliable regulator. To use the gas direct from the cylinder isa ; very foolish thing to do, particularly by an amateur. Many exhibitors try it and often tie their tubing on as well, when unless great care be used, ten chances to one, as soon as the | lights are turned off at the jet taps, pop goes the weasel! The tubing expands, swells, and | bursts with a loud report, not that there’s actual danger in this, but to nervous and timid people, might cause a panic in a crowded room. A known and reliable regulator would obviate all this risk. The London County Council should insist on this No gas cylinder should be allowed in any public building without a reliable regulator, so that when the operator turns his lights down at the jet taps he can leave his lantern without any fear of the tubings bursting or blowing off. © Neither; under any circumstances, should the . tubings be tied on at the jet taps or cylinders. | If this rule were adhered to there would be no | need to use iron piping or canvassed wire | covered tubing. The ordinary thick pure rubber ' tubing being all that is required. All the | London County Council regulations will never prevent accidents where carelessness and Inexperience are allowed to tamper with scientific instruments. The thing to do is this, © compel every operator to have a certificate of merit granted by some acknowledged expert or | experts appointed by the London County : Council. Better this than surrounding experienced men with a code of rules that may be | impracticable. You can’t formulate such against | incompetency. Not long since there was a | little flare up, I’m told. The film ignited in the cage ; presumably no water trough was used, being carried out. ' Had the operator left it alone it would have gone out to a certainty, but unfortunately he opened the cage door; when lo! the burning half of the released film fell among the rest and set them on fire too. Under the circumstances, if a metal box with a lid had been used the flames would have been confined and extinguished within its area; but it would never have happened at all if a large water trough had been placed in front of the condenser ; or, even in the emergency, if the film cage door had not been opened, nothing would have come of it. But there it is, it is only through want of thought and experience, that accidents occur even with the most perfect arrangements. I could have written at greater length on this and kindred subjects, but time and space will not permit, but lastly allow me to say not one person ; among the myriads of people who attend and delight in a cinematograph exhibition need be in the least apprehensive, but can enjoy one of the most charming optical illusions of the age, provided the cinematograph machine is a good one, the films perfect, and the whole / manipulated by a reliable, competent, practical operator, who really understands his profession. 3 FORGO r The Lanternist’s Practical Cyclopzedia.*—No. XVII. By CHARLES E. RENDLE. Markinc Siipes.—After years of practice much confusion is still evinced in the careless handling of slides. Lecturers of any standing of course are not prone to err, each having their own pet system of placing the slide in the carrier, to insure its appearing right way up when on the screen. Some seasons ago the writer adopted the plan of marking each slide as soon as bought, or bound up, so that mistake is next to impossible, using reasonable care. The screen in use is presumably an opaque one, or clearer still; the lantern is worked from the audience side of the screen. Hold the landscape, or whatever the slide may be, to the light (daylight preferred) between thumb and finger of left hand, being particular that the slide is the way up, etc., tbat you wish it to appear when shown on the acreen. Mark the slide just under the thumb with a piece of white adhesive paper, postage stamp edging answers well; care should be used not to cover the mat at corner in so doing. That is all that is required, and it only need be remembered that in placing the slides in the carrier, no matter from which side of the lantern the operator is working, the white spot or corner of slide must be in the top right band corner facing the operator. Should, however, the screen be a transparent one, then the marked part must take the left hand top corner, and face the screen. The above is so simple that a dozen slides can be so treated in five, minutes, and the convenience cannot be over-estimated. * All rights reserved.