Provide a mirror, either round, like the following figure,
or oval; the frame of which must be at least as wide as a card. The glass in the centre must be made to move in the two grooves, C D and E F; and so much of the silvering must be scraped off as is equal to the size of a common card. Observe that the glass be likewise wider than the width of the card. Then paste over the part where the quicksilver is rubbed off a piece of pasteboard, on which affix a card that exactly fits the space, which must at first be placed behind the frame. This mirror must be placed against a partition, through which are to go two strings, by which an assistant in the adjoining room can easily move the glass in the grooves, and consequently make the card appear or disappear at pleasure.
Matters being thus prepared, you contrive to make a person draw the same sort of card with that fixed to the mirror, and place it in the middle of the pack: you then make the pass, and bring it to the bottom: you then direct the person to look for his card in the mirror, when the confederate, behind the partition, is to draw it slowly forward, and it will appear as if placed between the glass and the quicksilver. While the glass is being drawn forward, you slide off the card from the bottom of the pack, and convey it away. The card fixed to the mirror may easily be changed each time the experiment is performed. This recreation may also be made with a print that has a glass before it, and a frame of sufficient width, by making a slit in the frame, through which the card is to pass; but the effect will not be so striking as in the mirror.
The Marvellous Vase.
Place a vase of wood or pasteboard, like the following:—
A B, on a bracket L, to the partition M.
Let the inside of this vase be divided into five parts, c, d, e, f, g; and let the divisions c and d be wide enough to admit a pack of cards, and those of e, f, g, one card only. Fix a thread of silk at the point H, the end of which, passing down the division d, and over the pulley I, runs along the bracket L, and goes out behind the partition M. Take three cards from a piquet pack, and place one of them in each of the divisions, e, f, g, making the silk thread or line go under each of them. In the division c put the pack of cards, from which you have taken the three cards that are in the other divisions. Then take another pack of cards, at the bottom of which are to be three cards of the same sort with those in the three small divisions, and, making the pass, bring them to the middle of the pack, and let them be drawn by three different persons. Then give them all the cards to shuffle, after which place the pack in the division d, and tell the parties they shall see the three cards they drew come, at their command, separately out of the vase. An assistant behind the partition then drawing the line with a gentle and equal motion, the three cards will gradually rise out of the vase. Then take the cards out of the division c, and show that those three cards are gone from the pack. The vase must be placed so high that the inside cannot be seen by the company. You may perform this recreation also without an assistant, by fixing a weight to the end of the silk line, which is to be placed on a support, and let down at pleasure, by means of a spring in the partition.