NO story of the evolution of the motion picture from an experiment in photography to a factor in the daily lives of millions of people would be complete without a passing reference to the impetus given by George Eastman, of Rochester, N.Y., to what was at the outset a toy for children—destined eventually to challenge the untried resources of the laboratory. Thomas A. Edison says: “Without George Eastman I don’t know what the result would have been in the history of the motion picture.” For a long time after Muybridge had demonstrated the possibility of photographing objects in motion any real advance in what was practically a new art was impeded by the weight, fragility and general inadequacy of the glass plates employed in camera work. Gelatine, transparent paper, and other substitutes for glass, were tried in vain. How Eastman finally solved the problem by the use of celluloid is explained tersely and clearly by F. A. Talbot as follows: In the early part of 1889 experiments were being made to discover a varnish to take the place of gelatine sheets. One of his chemists drew Mr. Eastman’s attention to a thick solution of gun-cotton in wood alcohol. It was tested to prove its suitability to take the place of the gelatine, but was found wanting in practical efficiency. However, Mr. Eastman recognized the solution as one which might prove to be the film base for which he had been searching. He had had such a medium in mind when engaged in his first experiments in 1884, which resulted in the production of the stripping film. He decided to utilize this solution of gun-cotton in wood alcohol and fashion it into the foundation for the sensitized emulsion, so that stripping and other troublesome operations of a like nature might be avoided. He was moved to this experiment because this solution could be made almost as transparent practically as glass. Accordingly he set to work to devise a machine to prepare thin sheets such as he required from this mixture. _Success crowned his efforts, and in 1889 the first long strip of celluloid film suited to cinematograph work appeared in the United States._ Thus had George Eastman removed for Thomas A. Edison the one obstacle that had hitherto made the latter’s projected kinetoscope impracticable, and celluloid had become the “Open Sesame” to that wonderland in which the movie fans of to-day delight to wander.