The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-06-22
A REAL JACKS BEANSTALK
MIXING NOTING PICTURES OF
 GROWING PLANES.

l
 formation of n Tadpole Into a.Frog, or
 ofa Caterpillar Into n Moth-Pictur-
 Ing the Flight of Insects.
 | The department of agriculture has taken steps toward acquiring the right l to use very novel invention, newly | patented by E. Francis Jenkins of Washington. It is a kind of mutoscope
 camera, but is designed espeically for a
 certain kind of picturemaking that has
 never been attempted hitherto.
 For example, the contrivance it set up
 in front of a stalk of corn just sprout-
 ing, and takes a photograph of it every
 hour for si xmonths, the exposures be-
 ing made tsuch intervals by peculiar
 automatic attachment. Subsequently | the film-ribbon on which these pictures are recorded is put into a magic-lantern 1 machine of the ordinary sort and run | off at the rate of thirty a second thus giving to the spectators in five minutes a view on the screen of corn plant growing out of the earth, putting forth | leaves, developing tassel and silk, ex- | hibiting the ripened ears and finally de- cayng.
 It is believed by the government ex-
 perts that this idea may be so employed
 as to have great educational value, and hence the desire of the department of agriculture to secure the privilege of
 using it. There are almist infinite pos sibilities, obviously for the utilization
 of the method, and one may easily inn
 agine 1t applied to the study of the
 growth of any kind of plant-as, for ex- ample, the watermelon, which may be
 seen in a few minutes to pass through all the stages of its development until at length five minutes after the vine
 has sprouted, it is ripe and ready to be conveyed from the patch by the noctur- nal and predatory colored person. Anchor this new style of camera in an open space; attach to it a wire, and it
 will make an exposure every two hours from the beginning to the end of the year. The result will be a ribbon of the seasons, and in five minutes the specta
 tors seated in theater will have an op- portunity to behold all the succeeding phenomena of the year. At first the ground will be seen covered with snow, which will vanish as the first vegeta- tion macs it's appearance. The trees will put forth leaves with visible rapid ity in the sight of the audience, and when at last they fall and the land- scape has assumed it's former dreary aspect, the white mantle of Jack Frost will be spread again over the land.
 One of the most interesting of the photographs made up to date with this novel apparatus represents an apple tree, which is seen in few tWinklings to display it's new foliage, put forth buds and blossoms, and ripen it's fruit. Equally notable is a picture of sun flower, snapshots of which were taken every minute from sunrise to sunset of a day. When the ribbon is run off at the rate of thirty photos a second one sees the flower turn on it's steam stead ily, always keeping it's face toward the solar orb, It should be mentioned, by the way, that the views do not jump about in the way that is so annoyingly familiar, but are perfectly stationary, owing to the fact that each snap reg isters perfectly with the ones preceding and following.
 Now, in the view of the government experts, this invention Is applicable in a great variety of ways not hitherto tried. For example, it is earnestly desird to know something more than is under stood at present regarding the flight of insects-not only because such informa tion would have value from scientific viewpoint, but for the reason that it might give help in solving the problem | of human volitation in the atmosphere, |
 At present comparatively little is known on this subject, simply because insects in general flap their wings so rapidly that no observer gets any notion | of the mechanical details of the perform ance. For example, it is altogether out of the question to follow with the eye | the movements of the wings of bee or dragon-hy, which very likely attain | 2, 1000 vibrations or more a minute How ever, this new machine records the al | most inconceivably rapid beats of these | wings, and, reduced by the apparatus to | one-twentieth of the normal rate of | flaps they exhibit to the spectator the manner in which the flying apparatus is utilized
 In one of these new style photographs a bumblebee is seen advancing toward | a flower in the foreground. Her flight, in reality, is enormously rapid; but in the moving picture it is reduced in speed so that she seems to be arriving at very leisurely gait. One has an oppor- tunity to observe the slow flaps of her wings as she approaches tn egoal, a luscious blossom, from which she in- tends to sip the honey. One may even take note of the varying shape of her wings IS she remains for an instant still in the air, advances, or goes Up or down.
 Picture-notes like these are if im- mense usefulness to the student of me- chanical flight It seems so obvious that there must be some means by which man can fly; and why should not the volitative apparatus of an insect, which accomplishes this kind of work so we'll afford valuable suggestions? Behind the blur of Junebug's wings is concealed vast fund of but the main difficulty in photographing insects in motion, of course, lies in getting the high speed re- Juired for the shutters. This is some- thing extraordinary, but it is hardly greater than is required fo registering he movements of a horses hoofs. The ,oof of a horse running at l:40 gait moves at the rate of 120 feet, or ,440 nches. a second-more than twice as asst as an ordinary railroad train.
 As already suggested the methods of ,