Page:Magic oracle, or, Conjuror's guide.pdf/9



Thoroughly dry before the fire a quarter of a sheet of rather strong brown paper, place it on your thigh, holding it at the edge with one hand, while with the cuff of the sleeve of the other you rub it smartly back and forwards ten or fifteen times; if the knuckle be then placed near the paper it will emit a brilliant spark, accompanied with a snapping noise; the prongs of a fork similarly placed, will produce three distinct streams of light. The experiment must, of course, be performed in the dark, and the trousers and coat be of woollen cloth.

Take half an ounce of camphor, dissolve it in two ounces of aqua vitae, add to it one of quicksilver, one ounce of liquid storax, which is the droppings of myrrh, and prevents the camphor from firing; take also two ounces of hematis, which is red stone, to be had at the druggists, and when you buy it let them beat it to a powder in their great mortar, for being very hard it cannot well be reduced in a small one; add this to the ingredients already specified, and when you purpose to walk upon the bar, anoint your feet well with it, and you may then put the feat into execution without the slightest danger.

To make an egg stand on end on any polished surface seems very extraordinary, yet is to be done even on a looking glass; now, from the form of an egg, nothing is more liable to roll, and on nothing more than a looking-glass. To accomplish this trick, let the performer take an egg in his hand, and while he keeps talking and staring in the faces of his audience, give it two or three hearty shakes, this will break the yoke, which will sink to one end, and consequently make it more heavy, by which when it is settled, you may make it, with a steady hand, stand upon the glass. This would be impossible while it continued in its proper state.

Take a glass, and fastening a small bit of wood across the mouth, stick thereupon a piece of candle lighted, and, with a steady hand, convey the glass to the surface of the water; then push it carefully down, and the candle may be seen