Venus across the sun in December, 1874, on a circular sensitized plate
which revolved in the camera. The plate moved forward a few degrees
every minute. There was room in this way to have eighteen pictures of
different phases of the transit on the marginal part of the one plate.
Marey constructed the apparatus for the revolving disk so that the
intervals instead of a full minute became only one-twelfth of a second.
On the one revolving disk twenty-five views of the bird in motion could
be taken. This brings us to the time of the early eighties. Marey
remained indefatigable in improving the means for quick successive
snapshots with the same camera. Human beings were photographed by him in
white clothes on a black background. When ten pictures 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 Anschütz 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