Magic Milk.
Lime-water is quite transparent, and clear as common spring water; but if we breathe or blow into it, the bright liquid becomes opalescent and as white as milk.
The best way to try this simple experiment is to put some powdered quicklime into a wine bottle full of cold water; shake them well together, now and then, for a day; then allow the bottle to remain quiet till the next day, when the clear lime-water may be poured off from the sediment. Now fill a wine-glass or tumbler with the lime-water thus made, and blow through the liquid with a glass tube, a piece of new tobacco-pipe, or a clean straw, and in the course of a minute or so—as the magicians say—“the water will be turned into milk.” By means of this pastime “Wise Men” can ascertain which young ladies are in love and which young gentlemen are not. With a shrewd guess they present, as a test, a glass of lime-water to the one and of pure water to the other, with unerring effect.