and so give the effect of relief. It is true that even then three images are seen, but the eye soon grows accustomed to neglect them altogether. This habit is a very pleasant acquirement for the London flâneur, who can thus see in perfection the numberless stereoscopic views now shown in our shop-windows without the intervention of an instrument of any kind.
The method of photographing subjects for the stereoscope is very simple, and consists in taking two views of the object to be depicted, from two different points. According to the distance of these points from each other, so will the resulting pictures appear in greater or less relief. This is readily seen in some stereoscopic portraits which have been taken at a large angle, and consequently show such increased relief as to produce distortion. Theoretically, the interval of the two points of view ought to be two inches and a half, that being the average distance between the two eyes; but in practice it is better to increase it in the case of portraits or other near objects to about twelve inches, and in that of views to even several feet. Brewster's original rule for taking stereoscopic photographs, was to place the cameras one foot apart for every twenty-five feet of distance. The beautiful stereoscopic pictures of the moon photographed by Mr. Warren de la Rue were taken at more than 1,000 miles' distance, in order to obtain the necessary relief. The principle of the stereoscope has received many useful applications in the way of book illustrations, art teaching, and anatomical demonstration, and has thus gained a position among philosophical instruments that it did not at first possess.
A combination of the principles of the phenakistiscope (fig. 4) and stereoscope, has resulted in the invention of an instrument called the stereotrope. A number of binocular photographs of some object in motion—a steam-engine, for instance—are taken when
