The Optical Magic Lantern Journal (January 1902)

The Optical Magic Lantern Journal and Photographic Enlarger. be employed where reduction or enlargement is necessary. : While the ordinary copying camera, or one of those made for the purpose, costing from 10 ‘to 12 dollars, is doubtless more convenient, the following simple arrangement, which we have employed for years, will be found in every respect as eflicient. It consists of our ordinary 5 by 7 inch camera with a 5 inch lens, and the baseboard 25 by 10 inches. The negative holder, with kits, will take negatives from 8} by 64 inches down, and the larger sizes may be moved and masked so as to admit of printing from any desired part. For contact printing artificial light is best, because easily made constant. An ordinary kerosene lamp with a 1 inch wick leaves nothing to be desired, although we now employ an acetylene flame ; but for camera copying daylight is preferable. All that has been said about the vecessity for correct exposure in contact printing is equally applicable to that by daylight, and it is perhaps a little more difficult to ascertain just what it should be. But as one really good slide is worth dozens that are not 80, it is better to use a few plates in seeking for it than to waste many in merely guessing at it. oe Grae ate Lecturers Should Learn Their Lectures. By A. B. ECENTLY, when meeting the editor of the Optica Magic LanTERN JourNAL, he asked me if I would give the result of some of my lantern experiences in the form of a short Sy article. As the word short was <7 used I will do my best to act up to that | little word, and in doing so will give merely a hint, so that he who runs may read, but at the same time the subject can be elaborated and , extended into several pages if necessary, so much can be said upon it. I, however, merely intend putting the matter in a nutshell. Most of those who have listened to a read | ' necessarily in the order given in the first the little hand with in to lecture of the kind found book which usually comes the hired set of fifty or more slides at the last , moment, cannot but feel a certain amount of compassion for the individual who has undertaken the task of giving what he is pleased to call the lecture. He invariably struggles througu it In such a manner that one cannot heip coming to the conclusion that he knows little about the subject. He tells us that such and such a mountain is so many thousand feet high, ' it, 125 and informs us that the village lying near the foot has a population of so many thousand, and in common with the majority of the books mentioned goes into a lot of statistics until in the majority of cases the audience get so tired of it that they decide that lantern lectures of this style are not worth turning out for on a cold evening. No matter the subject, and we will suppose even the dryest of them, it can be made interesting if the lecturer will procure the book of words in good titne and devote only one evening to its proper perusal, when he will at the same time, of course, strike out a large proportion and add new notes of his own. This is what should be done, for there is no denying the fact that nine out of ten of the printed lantern lectures are very prosy. Of course every lecturer will go to work in the matter in his own peculiar style, and this is mine. I will, however, first say that I do not append my name to this article, consequently I cannot be charged with egotism in any form. I have made quite a name for giving interesting lectures throughout Great Britain, and now explain the only secret, if such it can be called, in the hope that it will assist lecturers who are not so well endowed with this world’s goods as I am. I simply get the ordinary commercial lantern | reading, read it well several times until I under stand the subject, then turn it up in the encyclopedia and read everything pertaining to and make rough notes with references. Visit our public libraries and look up any books on the subject, and ; last, but not least, run through the last page of a few volumes of the Family Hercld under the heading of ‘* Random Readings,’’ and select a number of amusing anecdotes applicable to the subject, from which I also make my notes. Then, armed with the information obtained in the priuted lecture—plus information in any books which I happen to possess, plus information obtained in the public library, plus the Fumily Herald anecdotes—I write my own lecture, and in the very act of writing it out learn it more or less. I fit in the proper slides, but not instance, give a private rehearsal all alone (without the lantern of course), and in all cases my lectures have proved not only of interest but have been voted a great success, and I have been greatly amused when in reading certain newspapers I have been spoken of as an authority on certain subjects whereas a day or so before I practically knew nothing or little about them. To lantern lecturers I say, ‘‘Go thou and do likewise.”