xvi
IN TKODUCTION,
Without the expense or fatigue of travel, as has been
truthfully and glowingly said, the beholders are carried, in
imagination, to far distant lands, where they may gaze
upon the art treasures and wonders of the old world, or on
the mystic temples and pyramids of the river Nile. They
may run riot through the beautiful palaces of Versailles,
or may see pass before them a panorama of events covering
ages of ancient history.
These wonderful sun-pictures, seen as they are, magnified
and illuminated by the intense lights used, convey to the
mind of the spectator a better idea of the places and scenes
depicted than could be had by reading volumes upon
Volumes of books of travel. In speaking of the statuary
shown, the artists themselves say, that the fullest beauty of
the original sculpture is stereoscopically reproduced ; in fact,
the marble seems standing out before you in bold relief.
Projected pictures in the lecture room have pe¬
culiar advantages over charts and sketches, which are
so much and so deservedly praised by modern educators.
They arrest attention, as when there came forth fingers of a
man’s hand and wrote upon the plaster of the wall in
Belshazzar’s palace. They are not subject to wear and
tear, like unwieldy picture charts let down from rollers or
sorted out of mammoth portfolios, but they follow one
another without fuss or confusion, “ like the baseless fabric
of a vision,” and then dissolve away and relieve us from
all care. They may be enlarged or contracted, or raised or
lowered, or faced to right or left, or changed from grave to
gay, or varied by a succession of surprises with the greatest
facility, though in appearance they are as large and solid
as the Alps.
They are free from the confusing gloss of painted and
Varnished surfaces ; they are seen from every direction in the
best light, and are themselves the source of sufficient light