But the desideratum still remained of being able to
paint motion. Now this too has been recently accomplished, and in many
cases with singular felicity, by making the picture transparent, and
throwing lights and shadows upon it from behind. In the exhibitions of
the diorama and cosmorama there have been represented with admirable
truth and beauty such phenomena as--the sun-beams occasionally
interrupted by passing clouds, and occasionally darting through the
windows of a cathedral and illuminating the objects in its venerable
interior--the rising and disappearing of mist over a beautiful
landscape, runningwater, as for instance the cascades among the sublime
precipices of Mount St. Gothard in Switzerland;--and most surprising of
all, a fire or conflagration. In the cosmorama of Regent-street, the
great fire of Edinburgh was admirably represented:--first that fine city
was seen sleeping in darkness while the fire began, then the
conflagration grew and lighted up the sky, and soon at short intervals,
as the wind increased, or as roofs fell in, there were bursts of flame
towering to heaven, and vividly reflected from every wall or spire which
caught the direct light--then the clouds of smoke were seen rising in
rapid succession and sailing northward upon the wind, until they
disappeared in the womb of distant darkness.
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