Contributed by W. O. Hay, Camden, S. C.
The Principles of the Stereograph
Looking Through the Colored Gelatine
Each of our eyes sees a different picture of any object; the one sees a trifle more to the right-hand side, the other to the left, especially when the object is near to the observer. The stereoscope is the instrument which effects this result by bringing the two pictures together in the senses. The stereograph produces this result in another way than by prisms as in the stereoscope. In the first place there is only one picture, not two mounted side by side. The stereograph consists of a piece of card, having therein two circular openings about 1-1/4 in. diameter, at a distance apart corresponding to the distance between the centers of the pupils. The openings are covered with transparent gelatine, the one for the left eye being blue, that for the right, orange. The picture is viewed at a distance of about 7 in. from the stereograph. As a result of looking at it through the stereograph, one sees a colorless black and white picture which stands out from the background. Try looking at the front cover of Popular Mechanics through these colored gelatine openings and the effect will be produced.
If one looks at the picture first with the right eye alone through the orange glass, and then with the left eye through the blue glass, one will understand the principle on which the little instrument works. Looking through the blue glass with the left eye, one sees only those portions which are red on the picture. But they seem black. The reason is that the red rays are absorbed by the blue filter. Through the orange gelatine all the white portions of the picture seem orange, because of the rays coming from them, and which contain all the colors of the spectrum; only the orange rays may pass through. The red portions of the picture are not seen, because, although they pass through the screen, they are not seen against the red ground of the picture. It is just as though they were not there. The left eye therefore sees a black picture on a red background.
In the same way the right eye sees through the orange screen only a black picture on a red background; this black image consisting only of the blue portions of the picture.
Any other part of complementary colors than blue and orange, as for instance red and green, would serve the same purpose.