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

Provide a glass goblet about two thirds filled with colored water, draw a fiddle bow against its edge, and the surface of the water will exhibit a pleasing figure, composed of fans, four, six, or eight in number, dependent on the dimensions of the vessel, but chiefly on the pitch of the note produced.

Or, nearly fill a glass with water, draw the bow strongly against its edge, the water will be elevated and depressed; and when the vibration has ceased, and the surface of the water has become tranquil, these elevations will be exhibited in the form of a curved line, passing round the interior surface of the glass, and above the surface of the water. If the action of the bow be strong, the water will be sprinkled on the inside of the glass, above the liquid surface, and this sprinkling will show the curved line very perfectly, as in the engraving. The water should be carefully poured, so that the glass above the liquid be preserved dry; the portion of the glass between the edge and curved line will then be seen partially sprinkled; but, between the level of the water and the curved line, it will have become wholly wetted, thereby indicating the height to which the fluid has been thrown.

TRANSMITTED VIBRATION.

Provide a long, flat glass ruler or rod, as in the engraving, and cement it with mastic to the edge of a drinking glass, fixed into a wooden stand; support the other end of the rod very lightly on a piece of cork, and strew its upper surface with sand; set the glass in vibration by a bow, at a point opposite where the rod meets it, and the motions will be communicated to the rod without any change in their direction. If the apparatus be inverted, and sand be strewed on the under side of the rod, the figures will be seen to correspond with those produced on the upper surface.

DOUBLE VIBRATION.

Provide two disks of metal or glass, precisely of the same dimensions, and a glass or metal rod; cement the two disks at their centers to the ends of the rod, as in the engraving, and strew their upper surfaces with sand. Cause one of the disks, viz., the upper one, to vibrate by a bow, and its vibration will be exactly imitated by the lower disk, and the sand strewed over both will arrange itself in precisely the same forms on both disks.

CHAMPAGNE AND SOUND.