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

MUSICAL FIGURES RESULTING FROM SOUND.

Cover the mouth of a wine glass, having a foot-stalk, with a thin sheet of membrane, over which scatter a layer of fine sand. The vibrations excited in the air by the sound of a musical instrument, held within a few inches of the membrane, will cause the sand on its surface to form regular lines and figures with astonishing celerity, which vary with the sound produced.

TO MAKE A CARD JUMP OUT OF THE PACK.

Let any person draw a card, and afterwards put it into the pack, but take care that you know where to find it at pleasure. This you may do by having forced it. Then put a piece of wax under the thumb-nail of your right hand, and fasten a hair by it to your thumb, and the other end of the hair, by the same means, to the card chosen: spread the pack upon the table, and, making use of any words you think fit, make it jump from the pack about the table.

THE TELL-TALE CARDS.

Tell any one to shuffle the pack, to take off the upper card, and to notice it, then to lay it on the table, with its face downward, and put so many cards upon it as will make up thirteen with the number of spots on the noted card.

For instance: if the card which the person first looked at was a king, queen, knave, or ten, bid him lay that card with its face downward, calling it ten; upon that let him lay another, calling it eleven; upon that, another, calling it twelve; and upon that, another, calling it thirteen; then bid him take off the next uppermost card: suppose it to be an eight, let him lay it down on another part of the table, calling it eight; upon the latter another, calling it nine, and so on in the same way, until he makes that heap up to thirteen; then let him go to the next uppermost card, and so proceed to lay out the third parcel in the same way as the two preceding, and should the uppermost card be an ace, he must lay it down, calling it one, the next two, &c.

All this should be done either while you are out of the room, or your back is turned; upon your turning round, you take the cards which have been left; your object being to count, without its being perceived, how many there are remaining, you throw aside the three top cards, and lay the next three on the table, with their faces upward; then throw away one, then turn up one, and so on in the same way, until you ascertain how many cards they are; we will suppose that you find twenty-five cards left; deduct ten, when the remaining fifteen will be the number of all the spots contained in all the bottom cards of the three heaps, counting the court cards as ten; you must recollect that ten is, in all cases, the number to be deducted from the cards remaining. Having found that fifteen is the number of spots on the cards, do not declare it at once; but select from those cards which lie on the table, face uppermost, three or four which added together will make fifteen.

For instance: should there be a deuce, a five, and an eight, lay them aside for a moment, and taking the other cards from which you selected the three, put them along with those which you previously rejected; you now hand the three telltale cards to any person, assuring him that the number of pips on those cards will be the same as those on the bottom cards of the three heaps, which will be found to be the case.