The Magician's Own Book, or, the Whole Art of Conjuring / Being a complete hand-book of parlor magic, and containing over one thousand optical, chemical, mechanical, magnetical, and magical experiments, amusing transmutations, astonishing sleights and subtleties, celebrated card deceptions, ingenious tricks with numbers, curious and entertaining puzzles, together with all the most noted tricks of modern performers.

by George Arnold; Frank Cahill

THE WATER SNAIL, OR ARCHIMEDIAN SCREW

may easily be constructed. Purchase a yard of small leaden pipe, and twist it round a pole, as in the following figure, A; place a handle at its upper end, B, and let its lower end rest in the water. Between the last turn of the pipe and the orifice place a paddle-wheel, C. Now, should the water be that of a running stream, the force of the stream will turn the pipe, and the water will rise in it till it empties itself into the trough at D. Should the water have no motion, the turning of the handle at B will elevate the water from the lower to the higher level.

THE BOTTLE EJECTMENT.

Fill a small white glass bottle, with a very narrow neck, full of wine; place it in a glass vase, which must previously have sufficient water in it to rise above the mouth of the bottle. Immediately you will perceive the wine rise, in the form of a little column, toward the surface of the water, and the water will, in the mean time, begin to take the place of the wine at the bottom of the bottle. The cause of this is, that the water is heavier than the wine, which it displaces, and forces it to rise toward the surface.

THE MAGIC OF HYDROSTATICS WITH THE ANCIENTS.

The principles of Hydrostatics were available in the work of magical deception. The marvelous fountain which Pliny describes in the island of Andros as discharging wine for seven days, and water during the rest of the year,—the spring of oil which broke out in Rome to welcome the return of Augustus from the Sicilian war,—the three empty urns which filled themselves with wine at the annual feast of Bacchus in the city of Elis,—the glass tomb of Belus, which was full of oil, and which, when once emptied by Xerxes, could not again be filled,—the weeping statues, and the perpetual lamps of the ancients,—were all the obvious effect of the equilibrium and pressure of fluids.

TO EMPTY A GLASS UNDER WATER.

Fill a wine-glass with water, place over its mouth a card, so as to prevent the water from escaping, and put the glass, mouth downwards, into a basin of water. Next, remove the card, and raise the glass partly above the surface, but keep its mouth below the surface, so that the glass still remains completely filled with water. Then insert one end of a quill or reed in the water below the mouth of the glass, and blow gently at the other end, when air will ascend in bubbles to the highest part of the glass, and expel the water from it; and, if you continue to blow through the quill, all the water will be emptied from the glass, which will be filled with air.