Holiday Frolics; Or, Endless Amusement for the Christmas Fireside / Containing, the Most Astonishing Feats of Legerdemain, and Astounding Conjurings; Entertaining Experiments in Various Branches of Science; Tricks With Cards & Dice. Art of Making Fireworks; Together With an Excellent Collection of Puzzles, Conundrums, Riddles, Charades, &c. &c. The Whole Admirably Calculated to Beguile the Leisure Hours of Our Holiday Friends. Embellished With a Copper-plate Engraving

by Anonymous

To break a Staff placed upon two Glass Goblets full of water, without Injuring the Glasses or Spilling the Water.

Place the glasses (being full of water) upon two joint stools, equally distant from the ground, and from one another the length of the staff, then place the ends of the staff upon the edges of the two glasses, so that they be sharp, this being done, strike the staff in the middle, with all the force you can, with another staff, and it will break without injuring the goblets, or spilling the water.

To observe an Eclipse of the Sun without injury to the Eye.

Take a spectacle glass that magnifies very much, hold it before a book, twice the distance of its focus, and you will see the round body of the sun, and the manner in which the moon passes between the glass and the sun, during the whole eclipse.

Invisible Ink.

Take zaffer, and dissolve it in nitro-muriatic acid, till the acid extracts all the metallic part, then dilute the solution with common water, if you write with this liquid on paper, the writing will appear of a beautiful green, upon being partially warmed before the fire.

Bronze for casting Busts, &c.

Melt in a crucible, seven ounces of pure copper, when fused throw into it three ounces of zinc, and two ounces of tin. These metals will combine forming bronze, an alloy, which, from the exactness of the impression which it takes from a mould, has, in ancient and modern times, been generally used in the formation of busts, medals, and statues.

To put a Ring through your Cheek and then to bring it on a Stick.

You must have two rings exactly alike, one of which has a notch which admits your cheek. When you have exhibited the perfect ring, you change it for the other, and privately slip the notch over one side of your mouth, in the meantime you slip the whole ring on your stick, hiding it with your hand, then desire some one to hold the end of the stick, whip the ring out of your cheek, and smite with it instantly upon the stick, concealing it, and whirling the other ring, which you hold your hand over round about the stick.