The pictures passed a magnifying lens, but between the lens and the picture was a revolving shutter which moved with a speed carefully adjusted to the film.

The opening in the shutter was opposite the lens at the moment when the film had moved on three-quarters of an inch.

Hence the eye saw not the passing of the pictures but one picture after another at the same spot.
Pretty little scenes could now be acted in half a minute's time, as more than six hundred pictures could be used.

The first instrument was built in 1890, and soon after the Chicago World's Fair it was used for entertainment all over the world.

The wheel of Anschuetz had been widespread too; yet it was considered only as a half-scientific apparatus.