s were taken in a
second the subtlest motions in their jumping or running could be
disentangled. The leading aim was still decidedly a scientific
understanding of the motions, and the combination of the pictures into a
unified impression of movement was not the purpose. Least of all was
mere amusement intended.

About that time Anschuetz in Germany followed the Muybridge suggestions
with much success and gave to this art of photographing the movement of
animals and men a new turn. He not only photographed the successive
stages, but printed them on a long strip which was laid around a
horizontal wheel. This wheel is in a dark box and the eye can see the
pictures on the paper strip only at the moment when the light of a
Geissler's tube flashes up. The wheel itself has such electric contacts
that the intervals between two flashes correspond to the time which is
necessary to move the wheel from one picture to the next. However
quickly the wheel may be revolved the lights follow one another with the
same rapidity with which the pictures replace one another. During the
movement when one picture moves away and another approaches the center
of vision all is dark. Hence the eye does not see the changes but gets
an impression as if the picture remained at the same spot, only moving.
The bird flaps its wings and the horse trots. It was really a perfect
kinetoscopic instrument. Yet its limitations were evident. No movements
could be presented but simple rhythmical ones, inasmuch as after one
revolution of the wheel the old pictures returned. The marching men
appeared very lifelike; yet they could not do anything but march on and
on, the circumference of the wheel not allowing more room than was
needed for about forty stages of the moving legs from the beginning to
the end of the step.

If the picture of a motion was to go beyond these simplest rhythmical
movements, if persons in action were really to be shown, it would be
necessary to have a much larger number of pictures in instantaneous
illumination. The wheel principle would have to be given up and a long
strip with pictures would be needed. That presupposed a correspondingly
long set of exposures and this demand could not be realized as long as
the pictures were taken on glass plates. But in that period experiments
were undertaken on many sides to substitute a more flexible transparent
material for the glass. Translucent papers, gelatine, celluloid, and
other substances were