Visual Education (Jan-Nov 1920)

44 Visual Education number of cases a slight framework of a story lias been used on which to hang the facts. A film recently produced for Marshall Field & Co. as an exposition of the company's lace factories, used a faint romance as a basis for the picture, but this method is the exception rather than the rule. In many cases, pictures are used in industrial plants to instruct workers in various operations and have proved to be the most successful and rapid method of training. These are but a few of the many examples in the article by Mr. Pittman showing the enormously varied opportunities that await the motion picture in the fields of industry and commerce. * • • THE following article has recently appeared, quoted from a London weekly, "The Graphic": "Situated in a beautiful garden, in the suburbs of the Californian city of Los Angeles, stands the Clark Observatory, planned and built solely for the benefit of the public, who are admitted free on five nights a week. Its graceful tower is sixty feet in height, and consists of three stories. ^ On the ground floor there is a large collection of photographic transparencies of the heavenly bodies. The first floor houses the library and the third floor contains the telescopes, under a copper dome. "The chief telescope is a six-inch refractor. There are four other telescopes of smaller size, three field-glasses, three stereopticons, a moving-picture machine, and various other astronomical apparatus. What you can see through the telescopes at the observatory — and it really needs a highly trained eye to appreciate the full significance of what is seen — is supplemented by many other ingenious and instructive devices, which make the mystery of the heavens as plain as a pikestaff to the meanest intelligence. "The star maps and models, which have been specially invented by the curator, Dr. Baumgardt, who is a Swede, are wonderful. The maps, fourteen inches by seventeen inches, faithfully portray portions of the night sky; and over 150 of the maps, covering the whole of the heavens, are now being prepared. The stars are represented by small illuminated disks mounted on a black background, and by taking the map out in the open it is possible to compare it with the heavens. A particularly interesting map is that showing the Milky Way, a foot wide. "A large plaster of Paris model of the moon — most models of which are flat — will, when finished, portray the exact appearance of the moon as seen through the great telescopes. By means of certain dental instruments the exact contour is being obtained — an enormous task to undertake, since there are hundreds of craters, not to mention lunar mountains and valleys. "Another feature of the observatory is the models of the planets of our solar system, made to scale, with a circular ring upon the floor which represents the sun. The larger models are of wood, the smaller of brass, but all are painted as they appear through a good telescope. Beneath, on the platform, is a planetarium illustrating the weekly positions of the planets and demonstrating many astronomical facts relating to the earth, sun, and moon, their positions and motions. In short, the whole science of astronomy is reduced to the utmost simplicity. "The star photographs in the observatory are framed and illuminated by electric light in a very ingenious way. Those of the moon are shown with a white light; those of the sun have a yellow tint; and those of the nebulae, star clusters, spirals, and comets have a soft blue light. In each instance the exact appearance is given as when viewed through a large telescope. Here, too, is an interesting spectacular display of radium. Recently the curator made a container of radium in which the bombardment of the alpha particles of radium can be seen many feet away, a wonderful sight. The Americans have set an example which might well be followed by ourselves." • • * DR. Charles W. Eliot, president emeritus of Harvard University, believes most whole-heartedly in the use of motion pictures in the schools