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

If two pieces of ice be placed in a warm room, one of them may be made to melt much sooner than the other, by blowing on it with a pair of bellows.

SPLENDID SUBLIMATION.

Put into a flask a small portion of iodine; hold the flask over the flame of a spirit-lamp, and from the state of bluish-black crystals, the iodine, on being heated, will become a violet-colored transparent gas; but, in cooling, will resume its crystalline form.

MAGIC INKS.

Dissolve oxide of cobalt in acetic acid, to which add a little niter: write with this solution; hold the writing to the fire, and it will be of pale rose color, which will disappear on cooling.

Dissolve equal parts of sulphate of copper and muriate of ammonia in water; write with the solution, and it will give a yellow color when heated, which will disappear when cold.

Dissolve nitrate of bismuth in water; write with the solution, and the characters will be invisible when dry, but will become legible on immersion in water.

Dissolve, in water, muriate of cobalt, which is of a bluish-green colour, and the solution will be pink; write with it, and the characters will be scarcely visible: but, if gently heated, they will appear in brilliant green, which will disappear as the paper cools.

Dissolve in water a few grains of prussiate of potash; write with this liquid, which is invisible when dry; wash over with a dilute solution of iron, made by dissolving a nail in a little aqua fortis; a blue and legible writing is immediately apparent.[4]

CHAMELEON LIQUIDS.