THE CONE OF FLOWERS.
The two sides of the flowers employed are represented in [Fig. 2], where they are lettered A and B. Each flower consists of four petals of various colors, cut with a punch out of very thin tissue paper. Upon examining Fig. A, we see opposite us the petals 1, 2, 3, and 4 gummed together by the extremities of their anterior sides, while Fig. B shows us the petals 2 and 3 united in the same manner on the opposite side. A small, very light and thin steel spring, D, formed of two strips soldered together at the bottom, and pointing in opposite directions, is fixed to the two exterior petals, 1 and 4, of the flower, and is concealed by a band of paper of the same color, gummed above. It is this spring that, when it is capable of expanding freely, opens the flower and gives it its voluminous aspect.
Quite a large number of these flowers (a hundred or more), united and held together by means of a thread or a rubber band ([Fig. 2], C) makes a package small enough to allow the operator to conceal it in the palm of his hand, only the back of which he allows the spectators to see while he is forming the paper cone.
THE MAGIC ROSEBUSH.
In lectures on chemistry, the professor, in speaking of aniline colors, in order to give an idea of the coloring power of certain of these substances, performs the following experiment:
Upon a sheet of paper he throws some aniline red, which, as well known, comes in the form of iridescent crystals. He shakes the surplus off the paper into the bottle, so that it would be thought that nothing remained on the paper. If, however, alcohol, in which aniline colors are very soluble, be poured over the paper, the latter immediately becomes red.
