you may take wood-coals out of the fire, and chew them as you would bread; dip them into brimstone powder, and the fire will seem more strange. The sulphur puts out the coal, and shutting your mouth close puts out the sulphur. You may then chump the coals and swallow them, which you may do without offence to the body. In the same way, if you put a piece of lighted charcoal into your mouth, you may suffer a pair of bellows to be blowing in your mouth continually, and receive no hurt; but your mouth must be quickly cleaned, otherwise it will cause a salivation. It is a very dangerous thing to be done; and although those that practise it use all the means they can to prevent danger, yet I never saw any of those fire-eaters that had a good complexion. Some put bole ammoniac into this recipe, a thing which spoils the whole composition, and so leave out hematitis and liquid storax; but let them beware how they use it.
To Light a Candle by a Glass of Water.
Take a little piece of phosphorus of the size of a pinhead, and with a piece of tallow stick it on the edge of a drinking-glass. Then take a lighted candle, and, having blown it out, apply it to the glass, when it will immediately be lighted. You may likewise write with a bit of phosphorus on paper some horrible words, which will appear awful when the candle is withdrawn from the room.
Fulminating Powder.
Take three parts of saltpetre, two parts of salt of tartar, and one part of sulphur pounded and mixed together; heat sixty grains of this composition in a spoon, and it will fly away with a fearful noise, like thunder. A grain by weight of this powder, put into a tobacco-pipe, will cause a loud report and much merriment, particularly if the smoaker is not aware of the trick put upon him.
To set fire to a Combustible Body by the Reflection of two concave Mirrors.
The rays of a luminous body, placed in the focus of a concave mirror, being reflected in parallel lines, if a second mirror be placed diametrically opposite the first, it will, by collecting those rays in its focus, set fire to a combustible body.
Place two concave mirrors at about twelve or fifteen feet distance from each other, and let the axis of each of them lie in the same line. In the focus of one of them place a live coal, and in the focus of the other some gunpowder. With a pair of double bellows, which make a continual blast, keep constantly blowing the coal, and, notwithstanding the distance between them, the powder will presently take fire.
It is not necessary that these mirrors be of metal or glass; those made of wood or pasteboard, gilded, will produce the explosion, which has sometimes taken effect at the distance of fifty feet, when mirrors of eighteen inches or two feet diameter have been used.