A Match Trick
Another very interesting experiment is that performed with an ordinary match, a bottle, and a coin.
Fig. 3.—Coin leaving match and dropping into the bottle.
Bend in two an ordinary large match, thus partly breaking it, in such a manner that the two parts hold together by a few fibers of wood.
Place it, thus broken, on the neck of a bottle, and then on the match place a dime or any other small coin.
Having done this ask a friend if he can make the coin fall into the bottle without touching the coin, the bottle, or the match. You will find that he will search in vain for a solution to this seemingly impossible task, which however may be overcome in a very simple manner, as may now be seen.
Dip your finger in a glass of water, and placing it above the angle formed by the match, allow one or two drops of the liquid to fall on this angle ([Fig. 2]).
Immediately the fibers of wood, swollen by the moisture, try to straighten themselves, and you will see the angle of the match increase little by little until the match no longer supports the coin, which then drops into the bottle ([Fig. 3]).