APPLICATION OF THE STEREOSCOPE TO NATURAL HISTORY.
In treating of those objects of natural history which enter into the
composition of landscape scenery, such as trees, plants, and rocks, we
have pointed out the method of having them accurately drawn for the
stereoscope; but it is to the importance of stereoscopic photography
in natural history as a science that we propose to devote the present
Chapter.
When we reflect upon the vast number of species which have been
described by zoologists, the noble forms of animated nature, whether
wild or domesticated, and the valuable services which many of them
perform as the slaves of man, we can hardly attach too much importance
to the advantage of having them accurately delineated and raised into
stereoscopic relief. The animal painters of the present day,—the
Landseers, the Cowpers, and the Ansdells, have brought this branch of
their art to a high degree of perfection, but the subjects of their
pencil have been principally dogs, horses, deer, and cattle, and a few
other animals, with which they are well acquainted, and specimens of
which were within their reach. To give accurate representations of
giraffes, hyænas, and the rarer animals which are found alive only in
zoological gardens and travelling caravans, is a more difficult task,
and one which has been necessarily intrusted to inferior hands. In this
branch of his art the photographer is perplexed with the difficulty of
arresting his subject in a position of repose and in the attitude which
he requires. But this difficulty will diminish as his materials become
more sensitive to light; and means may be found for fixing, without
constraint, certain animals in the desired position. We have seen the
portrait of a dog taken with such minute accuracy that the slightest
trace of any motion could not be perceived. Its master directed his
attention to a piece of bread, and he stood firmly waiting for his
reward. Considering truth as an essential element in all photographs,
we are unwilling to counsel the artist to have recourse to a large lens
for the purpose of accelerating his process by seizing his restless
object in a single instant of time; but what cannot be tolerated in the
human form may be permitted in animal portraiture as a necessary evil.
The divine lineaments and delicate forms which in man the intellect
and the affections conspire to mould, are concealed under the shaggy
drapery of the world of instinct; and even if they existed and were
perceived, could hardly be appreciated by those who have not studied
its manners and submitted to its laws. But even in the present state
of photography such a celerity of process has been attained that a
distinguished amateur in Edinburgh has constructed a portable camera,
which, by pulling a trigger, instantaneously records upon its sensitive
retina the surf which is hurrying to the shore, or the stranger who
is passing in the street. With such an instrument, in such hands, the
denizens of the jungle or of the plains may be taken captive in their
finest attitudes and in their most restless moods. Photographs thus
obtained will possess a value of no ordinary kind, and when taken in
the binocular camera and raised into relief by the stereoscope, will be
valuable auxiliaries to the naturalist, and even to the painters and
the poets whose works or whose lyrics may require an introduction to
the brutes that perish.
In representing with accuracy the osteology and integuments of the
zoological world—the framework which protects life, and to which life
gives activity and power, the aid of the stereoscope is indispensable.
The repose of death, and the sharp pencil which resides in the small
lens, will place before the student’s eye the skeleton, clothed
or unclothed, in accurate perspective and true relief, while he
contemplates with wonder, in their true apparent magnitude, the
gigantic Mastodon, the colossal Megatherion, and the huge Dinornis, or
examines the crushed remains of the lengthened Saurian, or the hollow
footsteps which ancient life has impressed on the massive sandstone or
the indurated clay.
In the other branches of natural history, ichthyology, ornithology,
conchology, &c., the stereoscope will be found equally useful. In
entomology, where insects are to be represented, the microscopic
binocular camera must be used; and in order to prevent the legs, the
antennæ, and other small parts of the object from being transparent,
and therefore spotted, with the images of objects or parts beyond them,
as explained in a preceding chapter, the smallest lenses should be
employed.
The roots and bulbs which are raised by the agriculturist and the
horticulturist, the turnip, the beet, the carrot, and the onion; and
the fruits raised in the orchard, on the wall, or in the hothouse, may
be exhibited in all their roundness and solidity in the stereoscope;
and as articles of commerce they might be purchased on the authority
of their pictures in relief. The microscopic stereoscope will, in like
manner, give accurate magnified representations in relief of grains and
seeds of all kinds, and by comparing these with the representations of
those of a standard form and quality, the purchaser may be enabled to
form a better idea of their excellence than if he saw them with his own
eyes, or had them in his own hands.