The phonoscope (Nov 1896-Dec 1899)

Vol. II. No. 4 THE] PHONOSCOPE 9 XMng pictures Mire The biograph and cinematograph and kindred electrical contrivances will soon be relegated to the theatre lumber-room if the genius of a poor Galician school teacher, Herr Sczscepanik, prevails. He claims to have perfected a device by which pictures may be transmitted by wire from one city to another. It will be a moving picture, too. That is, a man bowing before the apparatus in St. Louis would be seen on a screen in Chicago, bowing and smiling — his every act transmitted true to life. Not only that, but there would be a true reproduction of the very color of the raiment of the subject. It is a marvelous discovery, and experts declare that experiments have proved its entire success. Indeed, so well has the Galician demonstrated his discovery he has been offered a million dollars for the right to exhibit at the Paris exposition of 1900. The process is simple. A dancing girl poses and pirouettes in front of a mirror, and every motion she makes is instantly flashed from another mirror to a screen at the other end of the wire. The inventor, in order to prepare his images for transmission, found it necessary to split or break them up into a series of dots. He accomplished this in a peculiar manner. He procured a small mirror and blackened its surface with an opaque substance. He then scratched on it rows of lines running generally in the same directions but not quite parallel. The lines were cut with a needle point and exposed the reflecting surface of the mirror along each line. They were close together, and when the mirror was allowed to reflect an object it would do so only along these lines. Another plate was prepared upon which similiar lines were drawn, only they were made to extend crosswise to those on the first mirror. Now if a large beam of sunlight were allowed to shine against the first mirror, and then to be reflected off against a wall, the light would be divided up into a series of lines of light. Then, if, before hitting the wall, the lines of light were allowed to strike the crosswise lines of the second mirror, the result, when the light finally struck the wall, would be rows of dots of light, because when the lines of the first mirror struck the lines of the second the beam of light would be reflected only where the lines intersected one another. If while this broken-up beam of light was shining on the wall the two plates were to be slightly moved backward and forward the angle of reflection would change, as would also the places of intersection of the lines on the plates, and the consequence would be that the dots on the wall would go dancing up and down and about in all directions within a small area. An arrangement of mirrors similar in principle to the above is made to receive the images which are to be transmitted by wire. In one side of the transmitter case is a narrow horizontal slit . Directly back of this slit or opening is a mirror with lines cut on it as in the first mirror described above. Just above this mirror is another mirror, the lines on which are crosswise to the lines of No. 1. By means of magnets and springs these mirrors are kept constantly oscillating, or moving, in all directions. The plane of reflection, in short, is being rapidly and constantly changed. If a man were to stand in front of the opening in the box, the mirror behind the slit, as it danced up and down, would, so to speak, reflect him successively from head to foot and from foot to head, and crosswise and obliquely, and in every other direction possible, as the glass turned or oscillated about. This constantly changing reflection of the man would be passed on to the other mirror, which hangs just above the first. This second mirror is also kept moving about, or changing the plane of its reflection. The moving reflection of the man in the first mirror was, as has been stated, broken up into lines, and when it struck the crosslines of the second mirror it necessarily became dots, so that constantly changing series of dots of light, showing the reflection of the man outside, is now projected into the upper part of the box or transmitter. Of course all the colors of his costume are reflected, as well as the shape of his body. In the top of the box, behind a small partition, is a resistance cell or plate made of selenium. Selenium is a very sensitive substance. If a current of electricity is sent through it, it will resist the passage of the current, and cut it down, according to the temperature and the light in which it may happen to be. For instance, if an electric current is passing through a piece of selenium while a red light is shining on it, the quantity of current which will finally get through will be very different from what it would be if the selenium were to be placed in blue light, This very sensitive characteristic of selenium is taken advantage of to transmit pictures by wire. The dots of light, which really form the image to be transmitted, are allowed to play through a narrow slit in the partition against the selenium cell in the top of the box. The selenium is part of the circuit or wire through which the picture is to be transmitted. This circuit may, for all practical purposes, be hundreds of miles long. An electric current is made to flow through it, and, consequently, through the selenium. Now the reflection of the man outside the box, with all colors of his costume, is being projected constantly against the selenium in the top of the box, and this rapid interchange of color is causingj;the electric current which flows through the selenium to vary constantly in strength as the different colors in the reflection affect the resistance of the selenium. It therefore follows that an electric current is easily obtained, the strength of which depends entirely on the nature of the color which is projected against the selenium. The transmission of colors, or, at least, the transmission of their equivalent in electric [currents, is what has been accomplished. 1Ro\>alt£ anb tbe Bio$rapb A great deal of comment has been created by the recent action of the Prince of Wales in sitting in company with a member of his family, for a series of biograph pictures which will be exhibited in English places of amusement. It seems strange to Americans that a man of such high rank — or of any rank — should permit the privacy of his home to be invaded by a photographer in order that the amusement seeking public may see moving pictures representing the family at the breakfast table, eating, drinking, laughing and talking, and the prince himself playing with his small grandchild. It is not easy for us to comprehend the heir apparent's feelings in the matter. The fact is that photography is to-day one of the strongest of the ties that bind the people of Great Britain to the.throne and the royal family. Scarcely a month passes without a new picture of her majesty or the Prince of Wales finding its way into the shop windows, and the prince, who is essentially an up to date man of the most progressive ideas, probably realizes that the moving pictures of the kind exhibited in public places of amusement are destined to take the place of the old-fashioned photographs in depicting important events. The next coronation in England will probably be recorded by one of these wonderful machines for the benefit of the millions of the queen's subjects who will not be able to witness the ceremony. The pictures that were recently taken of the Prince and his family will probably be displayed everywhere throughout the world. Slot flfoacbmes The courts have declared that the twelve hundred odd nickel-in-the slot machines now working overtime in San Francisco have a legal right of existence; and whether they are gambling devices, games of chance, or, like poker, games of science, does not concern the purpose of this article. The machines are here, they are going to stay, and they will be extensively patronized. This being the case, they should be controlled by a regulating license, and should be operated under such undoubted conditions as would give the man on the outside of the counter a reasonable chance for his life. No one expects to play any game that is run for profit on an even basis. He expects to allow a small percentage for operating expenses. The twelve hundred odd nickel-in-the-slot machines are not doing business on any such principle. Some of them are down-right swindles; all of them allow a percentage to the game that destroys any possible chance of coming out anywhere near even. And, indeed, why should they do otherwise? They can be stocked against the nickel you drop into that hopeless slot so that you have no earthly show to win. The owner of the machine can doctor it to suit the elasticity of his conscience — when he has any — and there is no one to object. That he does as a rule unfairly re-arrange, drop out and juggle the cards, can be proved by any man who regularly plays this patent accumulator. Richmond, Va., is beimg overrun with slotmachines, but this time the machines are within the law. They are nickel-in-the-slot machines, but they are played with checks the size of nickels, which checks are redeemable for cigars, though in many saloons the proprietors will re-purchase the cigars, thus giving the patron nickel for nickel and at the same time evading the law. These machines will prove sources of revenue to the State henceforth. The last Legislature enacted a law licensing them, and the commissioners of the revenue will on May 1st, assess $2.50 against each machine. The title of the act is as follows : "An act to provide for imposing a specific licensetax on slot-machines into which are dropped pennies or nickels or coins of other denominations and used in the State to dispose of cigars, cigarettes, chewing gum, or other articles of merchandise, and on musical [devices which operate on the nickel-in-theslot principle, to increase the revenues of the State." ILeoal IRotlces Judge Grosscup of the United States Circuit Court issued an order restraining the Western Phonograph Company from manufacturing certain improvements on sound-producing machines said to have been patented by the American Graphophone Company. The injunction will be contested, it is said, by the defendants.