ORIGIN OF THE KINEMATOGRAPH

Ashburton Guardian, Volume xxix, Issue 7543, 20 July 1908, Page 1

ORIGIN OF THE KINEMATOGRAPH

The faculty possessed by Edison, irt common with other great inventors, of taking up a scientific discovery and turning it to practical account, is clearly displayed in the kinematographJ The illusive effect of moving pictures was well known at the beginning of the century, as the following story shows: Sir John Hersehell, after dinner in 1826, asked his friend Charles Babbage how he could show both sides of a 1 shilling at once. 1 Babbage replied by taking a shilling from his pocket and holding it in front of a mirror. I This did' not satisfy Sir John, who' set the shilling spinning upon the table,at the same time pointing out that iff the eyo is placed cm a level with the: rotating coin both sides can be seen at< once. Babbage was so struck with the, experiment that the next day he described it to a friend, Dr. Fit'ton, who! immediately made a working model. On one side of a disc was drawn a bird, °» the other side an empty birdcage. \then the card was revolved on a 6ilk thread the bird appeared to be in the cage. This card showed the persistence of vision upon which all moving pictures depend for their effect. The eye •otains the image of the object seen for a traction of a second after the object nas been removed. This' model was called the thaumatrope. Next came the zoetrope, or wheel of lire. A cylinder was perforated with a series of hand dr.awings of dancing 1 men. On the apparatus being slowlyrotated the figures .seen 1 ihrottgh the: slots appeared to be in motion. The nrst systematic photographs taken at regular intervals of men and animals wore made by.Muybiidg© in 1877. Later on some ingenious person thought of the.idea of taking a succession of photographs of moving figures at different movements, each picture of course, illustrating the exact position of the figures at the precise moment the' picture was taken. The whole series of pictures was bound together upon one edgef so that by twirling thu leaves, one phase in the movement of the figures came into view immediately.,after the other and with such rapidity that the impression left upon tli© eye by one picture was nol effaced before the succeeding picture the effect of continuous movement was produced