Hence the eye does not see the changes but gets an impression as if the picture remained at the same spot, only moving.
The bird flaps its wings and the horse trots.

It was really a perfect kinetoscopic instrument.

Yet its limitations were evident.

No movements could be presented but simple rhythmical ones, inasmuch as after one revolution of the wheel the old pictures returned.

The marching men appeared very lifelike; yet they could not do anything but march on and on, the circumference of the wheel not allowing more room than was needed for about forty stages of the moving legs from the beginning to the end of the step.
If the picture of a motion was to go beyond these simplest rhythmical movements, if persons in action were really to be shown, it would be necessary to have a much larger number of pictures in instantaneous illumination.