Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1850-1854, 1853-05-06

uiocoFeTleS couHecteQ Win the DagueffiaL dIt
is the Stereoscope, a name signifying the pow
er to show pictures of natural objects, under
| the form of solids, precisely as they them
selves appear standing out in isolated relief
| 1t was invented by Professor Wheatstone, O
London, one of the claimants of the discovery
of the magnetic telegraph, but who, never
theless regards the Stereoscope as his best
title to fame BY some means, however, its
merits, ifappreciated by few, were overlook
ed by the public, and it was not until recent
ly that Stereoscope introduced by Sir Da-
vid Brewster received that attention which its
predecessors had failed to procure. The fol-
lowing translation of description by aFrench
saran vii clearly suggest its peculiar action
"You take two designs or pictures Of an OBJ
jeet taken turn by turn, with the right eye
and the left, then adjust them side by side,
perpendicularly before your eyes at the bot
tom of a little box, the image on the right
being seen by the right eye, and that On the
left by the left eye; between each eye and
image you interpoSe prism at such an an
gle or inclination as will force the two ina
ges from the right and left toward the center.
If you have correctly adjusted the angle of
the two prisims, as also the distance from
your eyes to the images, all the correspond
ing points of the two images will be seen so
magically blended and commingled as to form
one indontical image the looking at which
produces at first very singular physical sem
sation in the eyes, which very soon passes
away, and you behold there the one image in
of J.
cling and retreating parts, as perfect as if the
real object, without any intervening medium,
was standing there before you. To describe
the magical and captivating effect of this
spontaneous transformations of two images into
one solid image and Of three times the size,
length, breadth and depth, would be thing
impossible. The effects of the stereoscope
are not confined to the representation of geo
metrical objects, such as pyramids cones, &c.
If in this marvellous apparatus, welook at two
drawings of bas-releif, a statue, or two por-
traits of a living person, or two views of a
landscape, they will appear just as they are
in nature. We see the eyes, the lips, the nose,
in short, all the striking features Of the face
and all the projecting parts Of the body, COM
ing forward clearly from the back ground
with all their relative proportions. The illu-
sion is complete, and we see the person de-
pieted standing there identically before U.s.
1t is known that pictures of natural objects
are reproduced on the plates of Daguerre, the
paper Talbot, and the illuminated glass Of
Niepce de Saint Victor, with the same abso-
Lutte exactitude that their 1eeting images are
pictured on the retina of the eye When,
therefore, we wish to obtain the image Of a
bas-relief, a statue, a landscape, or u living
person, for the stercoscope, we have only to
arrange before the object a binocular camera
that is, camera furnished with Object
glasses Of the same diameter and focal dis
tancc, and two plates of illuminated glass.
This camera looks for us, and sees the object
placed before it. Like a compaisant artist,
it paints for us the two images with super
human skill and perfection and we thus OBJ
tain with ease and facility everything essenti-
al for the stereoscopo. Photography, which
was before designer of beautiful pictures in
gray tint with the incompatible pencil which
the starcoScope lends to her, has now become
transformed into a superhuman painter and
sculptor, armed with pencil which would
have driven Raphael and Michael Angelo to
despair. Photography, thus completed, and
crowned by the stereoscope is so vastly i'm
proved that the day must soon como when
nearly all important Photographic pictures of
landscapes, monuments, portraits, &c, will be
produced double, that is, by couples, in order
to their stereoscopic reproduction, in all the
exact truth of living nature"
The New York Tribune makes the follow
ing comments on the above:
Notwithstanding this highly eulogistic de-
scrlptlon of the stereoscope an investigation
will satisfy the reader that it fully merits all
the praise bestowed on it excepting with re-
gard to portraits. Stereoscopic portraits are
frightful, giving to the individual the air of
corpse petrifed and painted the color of life
But for objects of still-life, nothing could be
more charming. Still, though so universally
admired, the stereoscope meets with an unac-
countable neglect on the part of the public,
though this may be to some extent in con-
sequence of the greater expense of pictures
made by this process,