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 following figures will show how the five geometrical solids may be cut out of a piece of cardboard. Where the lines are drawn the board is to be partly cut through with a penknife, so as to render the angles of the models as sharp and as straight as possible. The edges which require joining are to be fastened together with a slip of thin paper and gum dissolved in just sufficient water to bring it to the consistence of treacle. Fig. 1 will form a tetrahedron, a figure with four sides, each shaped like an equilateral triangle. Fig. 2 forms a cube or hexahedron. Fig. 3 an octohedron, with eight triangular sides. Fig. 4, a dodecahedron, with twelve sides shaped like pentagons, with five equal sides. Fig. 5, an isocahedron, with twenty sides, formed of equilateral triangles.

Fig. 5.

HOW TO MAKE FIVE SQUARES INTO A LARGE ONE WITHOUT ANY WASTE OF STUFF.

Suppose you have five squares of cloth, or anything else, as in Fig. 7; find the center of one side of four of these squares, and cut them from that point to the opposite corner, then place the perfect square in the centre, and the other pieces round, as seen in Fig. 8.

Fig. 7. Fig. 8.

DECEPTIVE VISION.