AN OPTICAL ILLUSION PRODUCED WITH THREE MIRRORS.
PLATINIZED GLASS.
FIG. 1.
Platinized glass plates are no longer a novelty, but the illusion is very effective. The mirrors give an image in the ordinary way when looked at by reflected light, but are transparent when observed by transmitted light. The metalization of glass with platinum was discovered a great many years ago by the Messrs. Dodé. This property of transparency by transmitted light affords a very clever surprise. The mirrors are set in frames. In a panel behind the latter there is an aperture closed by a shutter. As the glass is transparent there may be seen through it, when the shutter is open, everything that is on the other side, so it occurred to the inventors to utilize this transparency by placing an image or photograph between the panel and the glass. On exposing the mirror to the light to look at one’s self in the ordinary way, if the shutter is open, the human head will disappear and may be replaced by the photographic portrait or a horned devil, which is placed behind the mirror. In the [illustration] we illustrate the head of the devil whose body is hidden by two mirrors inclined at an angle of forty-five degrees, as in some of the illusions we have already described. As he moves his head and smiles, the effect is rather startling. Electric light is used to illuminate the trick.