Satisfactory effects can, however, be produced with almost anything bright and shining. The first kaleidoscope we, in the thirst for knowledge, took apart was found to have for its objects about forty pieces of red, green, blue, and brown stained glass, smashed up into irregular fragments of about a quarter of an inch in width and length, and as the shapes were varied and the colours crude, the patterns at every shake were almost as startling as those produced by a sixpenny catharine-wheel on the 5th of November.

The ground glass should be fitted into a cap, so as to be removable at pleasure, and the fragments of coloured glass to form the patterns should be left free to move between the glasses.

Having made this kaleidoscope, and coaxed it into acting properly, experiments with other contrivances should be made. Mirrors should be arranged at ninety, forty-five, and forty-five; at ninety, sixty, and thirty, and other angular combinations. A lens should be fitted at the end of the tube for magnifying purposes, and the tube should be attached to a magic lantern, and the patterns, almost equalling the chromatrope, thrown on the screen.

Fig. 5.

Having worked the fixed mirrors to the point of weariness, shifting mirrors should be tried, and then two mirrors, made to alter their angles by an arrangement of screws (see [Fig. 5]), as in the adjustable form of the instrument, should be experimented with.

You will soon find that when the inclination of the mirrors is not an aliquot part of 360 the reflections will not join, and then the following table from Sir David Brewster’s manual of the kaleidoscope may prove useful:—

In-
clina-
tion.		No. of
Re-
flec-
tions.		No. of
Pic-
tures.		No. of
Direct
Pic-
tures.
120 321
72 523
513⁄7743
40 945
328⁄111165
279⁄131367
24 1587
213⁄171789
1818⁄1919109
171⁄7211011