He extended his hand in farewell, his eyes already
wandering toward his work in the inside room. And his visitor promptly
left him; the words, "I am busy," said in all sincerity, seeming
to describe in a single phrase the essence of his character and the
watchword of a very unusual man.
Returning by way of Berlin, I called upon Herr Spies of the Urania,
whose photographs after the Roentgen method were the first made
public, and have been the best seen thus far. The Urania is a peculiar
institution, and one which it seems might be profitably duplicated in
other countries. It is a scientific theatre. By means of the
lantern and an admirable equipment of scientific appliances, all
new discoveries, as well as ordinary interesting and picturesque
phenomena, when new discoveries are lacking, are described and
illustrated daily to the public, who pay for seats as in an ordinary
theatre, and keep the Urania profitably filled all the year round.
Professor Spies is a young man of great mental alertness and
mechanical resource. It is the photograph of a hand, his wife's hand,
which illustrates, perhaps better than any other illustration in this
article, the clear delineation of the bones which can be obtained by
the Roentgen rays. In speaking of the discovery he said:
"I applied it, as soon as the penetration of flesh was apparent, to
the photograph of a man's hand.
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