Part 28

TO TELL BY A WATCH DIAL THE HOUR WHEN A PERSON INTENDS TO RISE.

The person is told to set the hand of his watch at any hour he pleases, which hour he tells you; and you add in your own mind 12 to it. You then desire him to count privately the number of that addition on the dial, commencing at the next hour to that at which he intends to rise, and including the hour at which he has placed the hand; which will give the answer; for example,

A intends to rise at 6 (this he conceals to himself;) he places the hand at 8, which he tells B, who, in his own mind, adds 12 to 8, which make 20. B then tells A to count 20 on the dial, beginning at the next hour to that at which he proposes to rise; which will be 7, and counting backwards, reckoning each hour as 1, and including in his addition the number of the hour the hand is placed at, the addition will end at 6, which is the hour proposed; thus,

The hour the hand is placed at is 8

The next hour to that which A intends to rise at is 7, which counts for 1

Count back the hours from 6, and reckon them at 1 each, there will be 11 hours, viz. 4, 3, 2, 1, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 11 —— Making 20

TO MAKE A RING SUSPEND BY A THREAD, AFTER THE THREAD HAS BEEN BURNED.

Soak a piece of thread in urine, or common salt and water. Tie it to a ring, not larger than a wedding ring. When you apply the flame of a candle to it, it will burn to ashes, but yet sustain the ring.

TO MELT A PIECE OF MONEY IN A WALNUT-SHELL, WITHOUT INJURING THE SHELL.

Bend any thin coin, and put it into half a walnut-shell; place the shell on a little sand, to keep it steady. Then fill the shell, with a mixture made of three parts of very dry pounded nitre, one part of flowers of sulphur, and a little saw-dust well sifted. If you then set light to the mixture, you will find, when it is melted, that the metal will also be melted in the bottom of the shell, in form of a button, which will become hard when the burning matter round it is consumed; the shell will have sustained very little injury.

THE MAGICAL MIRRORS.

Make two holes in the wainscot of a room, each a foot high and ten inches wide, and about a foot distant from each other. Let these apertures be about the height of a man’s head, and in each of them place a transparent glass in a frame, like a common mirror.

Behind the partition, and directly facing each aperture, place two mirrors, inclosed in the wainscot, in an angle of forty-five degrees. These mirrors are each to be eighteen inches square: and all the space between them must be enclosed with pasteboard painted black, and well closed, that no light can enter; let there be also two curtains to cover them, which you may draw aside at pleasure.

When a person looks into one of these fictitious mirrors, instead of seeing his own face, he will see the object that is in front of the other; thus, if two persons stand at the same time before these mirrors, instead of each seeing himself, they will reciprocally see each other.

There should be a sconce with a lighted candle, placed on each side of the two glasses in the wainscot, to enlighten the faces of the persons who look in them, or the experiment will not have so remarkable an effect.

That is, half-way between a line drawn perpendicularly to the ground and its surface.

THE ENCHANTED BOTTLE.

Fill a glass bottle with water to the beginning of the neck; leave the neck empty, and cork it. Suspend this bottle opposite a concave mirror, and beyond its focus, that it may appear reversed. Place yourself still further distant from the bottle; and instead of the water appearing, as it really is, at the bottom of the bottle, the bottom will be empty, and the water seen at the top.

If the bottle be suspended with the neck downwards, it will be reflected in its natural position, and the water at the bottom, although, in reality, it is inverted, and fills the neck, leaving the bottom vacant. While the bottle is in this position, uncork it, and let the water run gradually out: it will appear, that while the real bottle is emptying, the reflected one is filling. Care must be taken that the bottle is not more than half or three parts full, and that no other liquid is used but water, as in either of these cases, the illusion ceases.

THE ARMED APPARITION.

If a person with a drawn sword place himself before a large concave mirror, but further from it than its focus, he will see an inverted image of himself in the air, between him and the mirror, of a less size than himself. If he steadily present the sword towards the centre of the mirror, an image of the sword will come out from it, point to point, as if to fence with him; and by his pushing the sword nearer, the image will appear to come nearer to him and almost to touch his breast. If the mirror be turned 45 degrees, or one-eighth round, the reflected image will go out perpendicular to the direction of the sword presented, and apparently come to another person placed in the direction of the motion of the image, who, if he be unacquainted with the experiment, and does not see the original sword, will be much surprised and alarmed.

TO EXTRACT THE SILVER OUT OF A RING, THAT IS THICK GILDED, SO THAT THE GOLD MAY REMAIN ENTIRE.

Take a silver ring that is thick gilded. Make a little hole through the gold into the silver; then put the ring into aqua-fortis, in a warm place: it will dissolve the silver, and the gold will remain whole.

CURIOUS EXPERIMENT WITH A GLASS OF WATER.

Saturate a certain quantity of water in a moderate heat, with three ounces of sugar; and when it will no longer receive that there is still room in it for two ounces of salt of tartar, and after that for an ounce and a drachm of green vitriol, nearly six drachms of nitre, the same of salammoniac, two drachms and a scruple of alum, and a drachm and a half of borax.

A LUMINOUS BOTTLE, WHICH WILL SHOW THE HOUR ON A WATCH IN THE DARK.

Throw a bit of phosphorous, of the size of a pea, into a long glass phial, and pour boiling oil carefully over it, till the phial is one-third filled. The phial must be carefully corked, and when used should be unstopped, to admit the external air, and closed again. The empty space of the phial will then appear luminous, and give as much light as an ordinary lamp. Each time that the light disappears, on removing the stopper it will instantly re-appear. In cold weather the bottle should be warmed in the hands before the stopper is removed. A phial thus prepared may be used every night for six months.

RUSES.