The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-09-18
A CAMERA CURIOSITY
PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN WITH AN
ORDINARY CAMERA

Mode of w. d. Gr1ce, of Portsmouth,
Ole Writes n Personal Ac-
count of the PhenomenOn-Ad-
mits He Is Mystifed-A Safe and
Chair Accidentally Taken
Through His Clerk and Himself.
Correspondence the st. Paul Globe.
CINCINNATI, Sept. 15.-One of the
most curious of all the mysteries with
which nature has puzzled the world
has just been brought to light at
Portsmouth, o., where furniture has
been photographed through human be-
irgs in a manner which no one can
explain. The facts concerning this
strange event are related by the man
in whose office it all happened Here
is what he wrote, in response to a re-
quest to tell the exact facts concerning
the mysterious Photographs:
II was sitting in my office a few days
ago when a travelling photographer
came in and asked to be permitted to
take a fiash-light picture. l was very
busy at the time, and told the man to
go ahead and let me know when he got
the picture be taken. At that time 1
was sitting in an office chair which has
cane or rattan back, and was leaning
back to see that my body covered the
entire portion of the chair against
which it rested, with the exception Of
a corner at the top, on the left side.
81 was directly between the chair
and the Photographic instrument. There
was no possibility of anything being
visible but myself My clerk became
interested in what was going on, and
placed himself in position. He sat in
an ordinary chair, with one knee cross
ed over the other. He held a bank
check on his knee, and it was at such
high position that the book slanted
back toward his body, so as to show the
bottom of the book to a person looking
from the camera could see the bottom
of the book.
after a few minutes the photogra-
pher told us he was all ready, and I
looked at the camera. He lit the
flash-light, and there was the usual
flare. Then he said it was all over.
l had noticed, however, that there were
two distinct flares or explosions, and
on inquiring Of the photographer, was
told that it was caused by his spilling
some of the powder on the top of the
camera. There is no mistake about
the two flares. 1 noticed them partic-
ularly.
THEY WE'RE TRANSPARENT.
1.-THE next day the photographer sent
me one Of the pictures he had taken,
the very picture that I send with this
letter. What was my establishment to
see that the backs of the chairs in
which We were sitting and articles of
furniture that were also located back
of US in the room showed distinctly
through our bodies in the picture.
thought at first that | must have some
affection of vision, but the more 1 look
ed, the more 1 saw that 1 was all right,
and 1T was the picture that was strange
The safe was particularly in evidence.
II have given the matter considera-
bic thought, but am as far from the
solution of the problem as I ever was
L know that when the picture was TAX
en- my clerk and myself were facing
the camera directly, our backs were
against our chairs. Yet the portion Of
the chairs that appears in the picture
was the same portion against which
our backs rested when we were facing
the instrument, and not the parts that
could be seen at all. The picture shows
the entire back of the chair in which
my clerk was sitting, and the entire
square of the bank check book which
he held on his knee. What mystifies me
is that in order to do this, the picture
must have been taken right through
his body to show the chair, and through
his knee to show the entire square Of
the check book.
There was an iron safe about five
feet in the rear Of me, in line with the
camera, and the panel work across it's
front seems to pass across my face.
Perhaps 1 should say in the picture
Of myself, for from this picture one
cannot say which of the two, the safe
mVSolf is in front 50 cOOon1ata1U
are we blended.
OUTLINE OF A LEG.
"If you will look closely at the pic
ture, you will notice shadow-like
line across the paper lying on the table
in front of me, that seems to be the
outline of my leg, which was under
the table. Then along down the back