Generally, the motion picture industry was skeptical of talking motion pictures and their future. But soon public opinion registered emphatically and the addition of sound was accepted as an indispensable faculty of the medium of the screen. And now finally the ancient and persevering urge for true living pictures was satisfied. * * * * * And thus the motion picture, like many another achievement of the human heart and hand and mind, has come down to us as the result of incalculable effort on the part of many. This great benefaction to humanity the world over is the realization of the aspirations of many who labored unceasingly and well down through the centuries--Archimedes, Aristotle, Alhazen, Roger Bacon, Leonardo da Vinci, Porta, Athanasius Kircher, Musschenbroek, Paris, Plateau, Uchatius, Langenheim, Marey, Muybridge, Edison and others. It is the creation of men of many centuries and many nations and from these diversities of time and persons it has gained its amazing power, its universal appeal. THE END _Appendix I_ MAGIC SHADOWS _A Descriptive Chronology_ B. C. ? First artist’s aspiration to recreate life and the movement of the world of nature. 6000 Babylonians and Egyptians acquire first scientific knowledge to of the light and shadow art-science. Crude magnifying 1500 glasses are fashioned. Light and shadow are used for entertainment and deception. Chinese Shadow Plays make use of silhouette figures cast on a screen of smoke. Japanese and English mirrors are devices for reflecting strange optical illusions. 340 Aristotle gives impetus to all studies. First recorded magic shadow experiment--“the square hole and round sun.” Euclid demonstrates that light travels in straight lines, a fundamental for all projection and photography. 225 Archimedes devises the famous “Burning Glasses” for destroying ships of the enemy, which may or may not have been a factor in the defense of Syracuse. 60 Lucretius, the Roman poet, writes _De Rerum Natura_, “On the Nature of Things,” combining verse and philosophy and a bit of science. The work contains a reference erroneously interpreted as a description of a magic lantern show. A. D. 50 Pliny and Seneca advance scientific knowledge. The effect of the atmosphere on silver is noted by Pliny. Seneca writes on the persistence of the sensation of vision. 79 Pompeii and Herculaneum are destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius. Excavations have recovered a lens and a sound effects system probably used by the priests to trick the people.