Magic Lantern Slides

One highlight of the Millington-Barnard Collection of Scientific Instruments is a "magic lantern" and a set of 30 "magic lantern slides". These slides are believed to have been purchased in 1859, by Chancellor F.A.P. Barnard for the University of Mississippi. They were used in classroom lectures on astronomy. Because the magic lantern used to show the slides was purchased from Chamberlain & E.S. Ritchie it is very likely that the slides were also purchased from the Ritchie firm.

The magic lantern slides were stored in a hardwood box that held a series of circular colored glass slides most of them framed in sets of three. The slides were hand painted on the reverse side and illustrated astronomical scenes. On the back of each design a circular wire holds a single sheet of glass against the wooden frame.

The slides remained in use as classroom tools and were listed as being "in good working order" by Chancellor Robert B. Fulton in 1881.

Center illustration: the seasons
Lantern slides clockwise: Mars, Uranus and moons, angle of the sun during the different seasons, fanciful astronomical illustration, supernova or galaxy viewed from the side, fanciful drawing of a comet, relative sizes of the umbre(shadows),the earth, the planets, Saturn with moons.