Page:In brightest Africa.djvu/193

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
  • kee machine gun, they threw up their hands and surrendered.

The story is probably all the better because its truth is doubtful.

Since its perfection the Akeley camera has been carried into many of the far-away corners of the globe by museum expeditions and explorers. The Katmai Expedition of the National Geographic Society, the Mulford Biological Expedition to the Amazon Basin, the Third Asiatic Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History, the MacMillan Arctic Association, and the British Guiana Tropical Research Station at Kartabo under the direction of William Beebe, are some of those which have been equipped with Akeleys. In taking "Nanook of the North," the picture made for popular distribution by the Revillon Frères Arctic Expedition, Mr. Flaherty used two of my cameras. Martin Johnson, whose motion pictures of the South Sea Islands and of Africa have won him renown as a "camera hunter," is planning to include three in the equipment for his next African expedition. To a degree at least, the camera is accomplishing the purpose for which it was designed.

While I had little idea at first that this camera would fill any other needs than my own, as it has been perfected it has proved its practicability for general use. The fundamental difference between the Akeley motion-picture camera and the others is a panoramic device which enables one to swing it all about, much as one would swing a swivel gun, following the natural line of vision. Thus instead of having to manipulate two cranks with the left hand, one to tilt the camera