at photographs and
pictures by its aid.

It has been used with good effect, even in large rooms, to show
diagrams, to illustrate lectures and to exhibit pictures to the
Sunday-school children.

No sooner had the lantern been obtained, however, than a demand arose
for pictures to show with it. In most large towns they can be hired from
the opticians, but they cost at least twenty-five cents a dozen per
night and, apart from the expense, it is not always convenient to get
them; then to purchase them is more than most boys can afford, as the
commonest, full-sized chromolithographed slides cost from two and a half
to three dollars a dozen, while hand-painted pictures or photographs
vary from three to ten dollars a dozen.

Accordingly we determined to try if we could not make slides for
ourselves, and, as our efforts were crowned with a fair measure of
success, I think it will interest the boy-readers of GOLDEN DAYS, many
of whom, I feel sure, own lanterns, to hear what systems we found to be
the best and easiest. I shall confine myself to those pictures that can
be made entirely by hand, and accordingly will leave photographs out
altogether.

Bought hand-painted slides are usually first photographed on to the
glass from a large outline drawing, and then colored; but so few boys
have the means of making their slides in this manner that it will be
best to pass this system by, especially as I shall describe a method of
making the sketch which answers as well, and is much easier.

At the very outset, we were met with a difficulty that we feared would
be insurmountable, and that was that it was almost impossible to make a
neat, fine-lined sketch with a brush and paint on plain, smooth glass;
and, even when this last had been managed, the coloring process often
washed out the outlines and made unsightly smudges, and, as every little
line, spot or smear shows with painful distinctness when magnified on
the sheet, we soon saw that amateur work on these lines would never do.
Fortunately I remembered a process, which I once saw used by a
microscopist, to make diagrams for the lantern to illustrate his
lectures, which answered admirably.

This was simply to draw, with a very hard lead pencil, on ground glass,
then to cover the ground surface with varnish, which rendered the glass
perfectly transparent.

I tried this plan, and got such good results from it that I can strongly
recommend it. By following out the instructions an