OPTICAL THEATRE OF REYNAUD.
(After picture in La Nature, 1892.)
THE KINEOGRAPH.
Drawings, too, were first employed for a little optical novelty in book-form, introduced about 1868, called the kineograph. It consisted of a number of leaves, with drawings on one side, firmly bound along an edge. The manner of its manipulation was to cause the leaves to flip from under the thumb while the book was held in the hands. The pictures, all of a series depicting some action of an entertaining subject, passed quickly before the vision as they slipped from under the thumb and gave a continuous action of the particular subject of the kineograph.
Now when the camera began to be employed in taking pictures of figures in action, one of the first uses made of such pictures was to put a series of them into the book-form so as to give, by this simple method of allowing the leaves to flip from under the thumb, the visional deception of animated photographs.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Celluloid is at this date the most serviceable material for these ribbons. But as it is inflammable a substitute is sought—one that has the advantages possessed by celluloid but of a non-combustible material.
THE GENESIS OF MOTION-PICTURES