PICTURING GROWTH

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 83, 9 April 1931, Page 18

PICTURING GROWTH

The life history of a chemical process or tho growth of a plant may be seen taking place in a few seconds by tho use of what is known as the intermittent camera. These cameras (explains a writer in "My Magazine ) photograph the growth, budding, and bursting into flower of a plant. A photograph is taken once an hour or so all day long and all night, using day or electric light. A little electric motor works the shutter of the camera at timed intervals, and moves the film forward. If a plant takes six weeks to spring up and "flower, and 24 pictures aro taken each day, it means that tho camera will take a thousand pictures. When these are developed and1 printed they are thrown on the screen in exactly one minute. In one minute we see the whole life history of the plant unfold itself as if by magic. Both slow motion and quick motion photography are now being applied to the tiniest objects by means of the microscope, and they are revealing tho secrets of new worlcls of life.