Page:The wonders of optics (1869).djvu/208

 beautiful face. Nothing could be more natural, either, than that this magic looking-glass should be placed om a daïs, and shaded by a canopy. Nostradamus, who was a shrewd man, could no doubt pretty well see the course that events would take, and must consequently have felt quite safe in showing the Princess the throne of France occupied by Henry of Navarre. This was not the first time that the rulers of the earth were duped by so-called magicians, who possessed the knowledge that the angle of reflection was always equal to the angle of refraction.

We may also mention, while speaking on this subject, the adventure of the Emperor Alexander of Russia, ''à propos'' of a singular optical experiment at which he was present, which had for its end the changing of a man into a wild animal, or vice versâ. Certain cynics will possibly say that this is by no means difficult, and that it is an event that happens every day; but the clever trick at which Alexander was so astonished was not moral but purely physical. After having gained much money and fame in France, Robertson directed his steps towards Hamburg, where the Emperor was at that time stopping. He performed before the Czar an experiment that puzzled his Majesty beyond endurance. He showed him a man upon whose shoulders he saw successively the head of a calf, a lion, a tiger, a bear, and a whole menagerie of other animals. At last, the Czar could stand it no longer, and he suddenly rose, put his shoulder against the partition, and brought the whole to the ground with a loud crash, just at the moment that the confederate was assuming the form of a goat. If our readers would like to join the Czar in his discovery of the manner in which the trick was performed, they can easily do so.

The room in which this trick is to be performed should have a smaller one adjoining it, about eight feet square.