Edison, The Modern Wizard

"Kinetograph"' is the newest word. And a very odd one it is to American ears, bufc if Thomas Alva Edison is not sadly mistaken it is soon to be as common as phonograph or telegraph. The thing it represents, however, is certainly far more wonderful than anything yet known in the line of projecting sound or intelligence. It is nothing more nor less than telegraphing inotion - that is,every movement of an actor on the stage can be recorded on cylinders and reproduced at will, and that in seemingly continuous movemnt and not with the successive snaps of the "magie lantern." The first problem was to take instantanepos photographs in such rapid succession that no break could be detected, and Edison can now do that. The impressions are recorded on a long roll of gelatine paper fastened to a spindle, whioh passes over a photographic lens. This is how Mr. Edison himself describes the wonder: "The machine starts, moves, uncloses, stops, takes a photograpb, closes, starts, nncloses, stops, takes another, and so on, and forty-sts of these are recorded e very second." And this process can be kept np f or thirty minutes without a pause. So 2,760 photographs can be taken each minute and 82,800 every half hour. Thua the full representaron of say, an opera, the movement on the stage and music can be recorded. Two machines must work together, as the company at theater or opera gives a full dress rehearsal. One records motion, the other sound, and they must work together to a fraction of a second too minute to be detected by the eye, as, if the gesture feil behind the sound, or vice versa, the result would be lúdicrous. Mr. Edison already has his first rude model in operation in his workshop at Menlo Park, and one who has been allowed to see it operated says: "Ifc la a regular photographic machine impelled by an electric motor. In the top of the box was a hole about the size of a - silver dollar. The machine was started andjl looked through the orífice. What I saw was the form of a man about an inch in size bowing and raising his hat. The motions were natural and continuous, and no break could be detected between them. The picture I saw was only a negative, photographed on an endlesa slip. At the greatest rate of speed no gap could be noticed between the bows. They carne along smoothly and naturally. But when the speed was decreased to twenty or thirty pictures per second the diffierence was at once noticeable. The motions became jerky and irregular."