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

EXPERIMENT.

Melt a pound or two of bismuth in an iron ladle over the fire; remove it as soon as the whole is fluid; and when the surface has become solid break a hole in it, and pour out the still fluid metal from the interior; what remains will exhibit beautifully-formed crystals of a cubic shape.

Sulphur may be crystallized in the same manner, but its fumes, when heated, are so very unpleasant, that few would wish to encounter them.

One of the most remarkable facts in chemistry—a science abounding in wonders—is the circumstance that the mere contact of hydrogen, the lightest body known, with the metal platinum, the heaviest, when in a state of minute division, called spongy platinum, produces an intense heat, sufficient to inflame the hydrogen: of course this experiment must be made in the presence of atmospheric air or oxygen. If a small piece of the metal in the state above named be introduced into a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen, it will cause them to explode. A very small quantity of gas should be employed, and placed in a jar lightly covered with a card, or the explosion would be dangerous.

BEAUTIES OF CRYSTALLIZATION.

Dissolve alum in hot water until no more can be dissolved in it; place in it a smooth glass rod and a stick of the same size; next day, the stick will be found covered with crystals, but the glass rod will be free from them: in this case, the crystals cling to the rough surface of the stick, but have no hold upon the smooth surface of the glass rod. But if the rod be roughened with a file at certain intervals, and then placed in the alum and water, the crystals will adhere to the rough surfaces, and leave them smooth bright and clear.

Tie some threads of lamp-cotton irregularly around a copper wire or glass rod; place it in a hot solution of blue vitriol, strong as above, and the threads will be covered with beautiful blue crystals, while the glass rod will be bare.

Bore a hole through a piece of coke, and suspend it by a string from a stick, placed across a hot solution of alum; it will float; but, as it becomes loaded with crystals, it will sink in the solution according to the length of the string. Gas-coke has mostly a smooth, shining, and almost metallic surface, which the crystals will avoid, while they will cling only to the most irregular and porous parts.

If powdered turmeric be added to the hot solution of alum, the crystals will be of a bright yellow; litmus will cause them to be of a bright red; logwood will yield purple; and common writing ink, black; and the more muddy the solution, the finer will be the crystals.