We followed Scott and Shackleton into the regions of eternal
ice, we climbed the Himalayas, we saw the world from the height of the
aeroplane, and every child in Europe knows now the wonders of Niagara.
But the kinematographer has not sought nature only where it is gigantic
or strange; he follows its path with no less admirable effect when it is
idyllic. The brook in the woods, the birds in their nest, the flowers
trembling in the wind have brought their charm to the delighted eye more
and more with the progress of the new art.
But the wonders of nature which the camera unveils to us are not limited
to those which the naked eye can follow. The technical progress led to
the attachment of the microscope. After overcoming tremendous
difficulties, the scientists succeeded in developing a microscope
kinematography which multiplies the dimensions a hundred thousand times.
We may see on the screen the fight of the bacteria with the
microscopically small blood corpuscles in the blood stream of a diseased
animal. Yes, by the miracles of the camera we may trace the life of
nature even in forms which no human observation really finds in the
outer world. Out there it may take weeks for the orchid to bud and
blossom and fade; in the picture the process passes before us in a few
seconds. We see how the caterpillar spins its cocoon and how it breaks
it and how the butterfly unfolds its wings; and all which needed days
and months goes on in a fraction of a minute.
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