Fig. 61. a photograph of a coin made with radium
That is, the coin is laid on the envelope containing the dry plate, and the bottle with the radioactive substance in it is laid on top of the coin. Let them remain undisturbed in this way for a couple of days and you will find on developing the plate a very good radiograph, or shadow picture of the coin as shown in [Fig. 61].
Trick Photography
Spirit Photographs.
—When photography was young Sir John Herschel, the great astronomer, got up what he called magic photographs and these have been worked under the name of spirit photographs by half of the mediums in the business.
The idea is to show the victim of superstition his future wife or her future husband. To this end the medium shows a piece of perfectly blank paper about an inch square. She—sometimes it’s a he—then dips the bit of paper into a saucer of what seems to be ordinary, common every day water and with much dignity and mysticism presses it to the forehead of the aforesaid ninny who would fain know what the partner of his, or her joys and sorrows will look like. (What’s the use when they will know so well afterward?)
Be that as it may, when the medium removes the bit of paper from the simpleton’s forehead a photograph has really and truly appeared on it and—there you are! (Fifty cents, please.)
Now the trick is done like this and you can have some fun repeating it. Print some photos postage-stamp size of boys and girls on ordinary silver paper and fix them in hypo dissolved in water but don’t tone them; wash them well and then soak them in a saturated solution[64] of bichloride of mercury which will bleach out the picture and leave the paper perfectly white again; this done dry the paper and put it away until you want to use it.
[64] A saturated solution of bichloride of mercury is one in which all of the mercury has been dissolved in the water that it will dissolve at its present temperature and pressure.