The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 45, July, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 45, July, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
If the reader is interested, or like to become interested, in the
subject of sun-sculpture and stereoscopes, he may like to know what the
last two years have taught us as to the particular instruments best
worth owning. We will give a few words to the subject. Of simple
instruments, for looking at one slide at a time, Smith and Beck's is the
most perfect we have seen, but the most expensive. For looking at paper
slides, which are light, an instrument which may be held in the hand
is very convenient. We have had one constructed which is better, as
we think, than any in the shops. Mr. Joseph L. Bates, 129, Washington
Street, has one of them, if any person is curious to see it. In buying
the instruments which hold many slides, we should prefer two that hold
fifty to one that holds a hundred. Becker's small instrument, containing
fifty paper slides, back to back, is the one we like best for these
slides, but the top should be arranged so as to come off,--the first
change we made in our own after procuring it.
We are allowed to mention the remarkable instrument contrived by our
friend Dr. H.J. Bigelow, for holding fifty glass slides. The spectator
looks in: all is darkness. He turns a crank: the gray dawn of morning
steals over some beautiful scene or the _façade_ of a stately temple.
Still, as he turns, the morning brightens through various tints of rose
and purple, until it reaches the golden richness of high noon. Still
turning, all at once night shuts down upon the picture as at a tropical
sunset, suddenly, without blur or gradual dimness,--the sun of the
picture going down,
"Not as in Northern climes obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light."
We have not thanked the many friendly dealers in these pictures, who
have sent us heaps and hundreds of stereographs to look over and select
from, only because they are too many to thank. Nor do we place any price
on this advertisement of their most interesting branch of business. But
there are a few stereographs we wish some of them would send us,
with the bill for the same: such as Antwerp and Strasbourg
Cathedrals,--Bologna, with its brick towers,--the Lions of Mycenae, if
they are to be had,--the Walls of Fiesole,--the Golden Candlestick in
the Arch of Titus,--and others which we can mention, if consulted;
some of which we have hunted for a long time in vain. But we write
principally to wake up an interest in a new and inexhaustible source of
pleasure, and only regret that the many pages we have filled can do no
more than hint the infinite resources which the new art has laid open to
us all.
THE LONDON WORKING-MEN'S COLLEGE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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