Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/229

Rh M A G M A G this article there has appeared no correct imitation of this joint invention of John Nevil Maskelyne and John Algernon Clarke. Perhaps a still more original automaton is Maskelyne s figure &quot; Zoe,&quot; constructed in 1877, which writes and draws at dictation of the audience, yet cannot have a living person within, and could not be more completely severed from all conceivable means of control without. &quot;Zoe,&quot; a nearly life-size but very light doll, sits loose upon a cushioned skeleton-stand, of which the solid feet of the plinth rest upon a thick plate of clear glass laid upon the floor-cloth or carpet of the stage. &quot;Psycho,&quot; a smaller Oriental figure, sitting cross-legged on a box, is supported by a single large cylinder of clear glass, which, as originally exhibited, stood upon the carpet of the stage, but was afterwards set loose upon a small stool, having solid wood feet ; moreover, this automaton may be placed in almost any number of different ways. Thus, from the precautions observed in the isolation of Maskelyne s automata, no current of electricity, no magnetic attraction, no hydraulic or pneumatic force can reach them, or, if it could, would not account for the many and delicate movements which they execute ; and there can be no wires, threads, or hairs, passing in any direction away from the figures, seeing that persons from the audience admitted close around the figures while they are in operation could not fail to observe them. It may be mentioned that, in the same year in which &quot;Psycho&quot; appeared, the joint inventors patented a method of con trolling the speed of clock-work mechanism by compressed air or gas stored in the pedestal of an automaton, this compressed fluid acting upon a piston in a cylinder and also upon a rotating fan when a valve is opened by &quot; an electrical or other connexion worked by the foot of the performer or an assistant.&quot; But it is not known whether the principle obscurely described in the speci fication was applicable in any way to the invisible agency employed in &quot; Psycho &quot; or in &quot; Zoe,&quot; or whether it had reference to some other invention which has never been realized. The whist-playing automaton is affirmed to be the only one of Maskelyne s many subtle inventions in which he received suggestions from another person. That a mysterious and apparently elaborate mechanical movement may, after all, possess the utmost simplicity is illustrated by the familiar conjuring trick known as &quot;rising cards,&quot; Four cards having been chosen by the audience and returned to the pack, this is placed end upwards in a glass goblet, or in a thin case not deep enough to hide the pack, upon the top of a decanter or upon a stick. At command, the cards rise, one at a time, out of the pack ; one rises part of the way and sinks back again ; one rises quickly or slowly as directed ; one comes out feet first, and, on being put back, rises head upwards like the others ; and one dances in time to music, and finally jumps out of the pack. At the conclusion there remain only the goblet or the case and the cards, subject to the minutest examination of any one from the audience, without a trace of moving mechanism visible. This was one of the chi&ijeux of Comte, the French conjuror and ventriloquist, at the end of last century, and in varied forms has been popular to the present day. Probably it was suggested by the earlier device of the golden head dancing in a glass tumbler, which is described in The Conjuror Unmasked, 1790. Several crown pieces were put in the glass, a small gilded head above them, and a plate or other flat cover laid upon the mouth of the glass ; yet the head thus isolated jumped inside the glass so as to count numbers and answer questions. The secret communicator of motion was a fine silk thread attached to the head and passing through a tiny notch cut in the lip of the glass, and so to a con federate who pulls it. In the case of the rising cards the whole cf the movements are effected by arranging a single silk thread in the previously prepared pack, passing over some cards and under others, and led behind the decanter or other support to the stage and thence to the confederate. As this infinitely simple mechanical agent is drawn alto gether out of the pack after the last card has risen, liter ally no trace remains of any means of communicating motion to the cards. Oriental ingenuity, which furnished the original idea of the ethereal suspension trick, contributed the Chinese rings introduced into England in 1834 ; also the Chinese feat of producing a bowl of water with gold-fish out of a shawl, first seen in England in 1845, and the Indian rope-tying and sack feats upon which the American brothers Davenport founded a distinct order of performances in 1859. Their quick escape from rope bonds in which they were tied by representatives of the audience, the instantaneous removal of their coats in a dark stance, leaving themselves still bound, and their various other so-called &quot;phenomena&quot; were exposed and imitated by Maskelyne, who, in 1860, greatly surpassed any feats which they had accomplished. He proceeded to exhibit himself floating in the air, to show &quot; material ized spirit forms,&quot; and to present a succession of wonders of the spirit mediums in novel performances down to the present time. One of Maskelyne s cleverest inventions was the box which he constructed in 1860 ; it closely fitted when he packed himself in a cramped position within ; it was enclosed in a canvass wrapper, corded with any length and complicated meshing of rope, and the knot sealed, yet his escape was effected in the brief space of seven seconds. Taking more time, he performed the converse of these opera tions except the sealing. Provided with the wrapper and the open box, himself standing outside, he drew a curtain before him to conceal the modus operandi, and in a few minutes was found in the box, which, though so small as to permit no limb to be moved more than a few inches, he nevertheless wrapped and corded as exactly as if he had operated from the outside. Partially imitated with trick boxes of larger size, this feat has never been executed under the same conditions by any other conjuror; and the process of escape and repacking has never been fully eluci dated, (j. A. CL.) MAGIC LANTERN is the name given to an optical instrument for projecting on a white wall or screen largely magnified representations of transparent pictures painted or photographed on glass. The invention of the magic lantern is usually attributed to Athanasius Kircher, who died in 1680, although, ac cording to some, it was known four centuries earlier to Roger Bacon (see p. 207). For long after its discovery the magic lantern was used chiefly to exhibit comic pictures, or in the hands of so-called wizards to summon up ghosts and perform other tricks astonishing to those who were ignorant of the simple optical principles employed. Within the last twenty or thirty years, however, and mainly on account of the invention of photography, the magic lantern has been greatly improved in construction, and its use widely extended. By its means finely executed photographs on glass can be shown greatly magnified to large audiences. The scientific lecturer is thus saved the trouble and expense of preparing large diagrams, besides having his subject better illustrated. When suitably constructed, the magic lantern can be used in the form of a microscope to exhibit on a screen the forms and movements of minute living organisms, or to show to an audience delicate physical and chemical experiments which could otherwise be seen only by a few at a time. The magic lantern in its simplest form is represented in fig. 1. A is a dark box surmounted by a suitable chimney for carrying off the products of combustion from the source