Fig. 255.
a. The lamp. b. The candle. c. The rod throwing the two shadows, marked d and e, on a white wall or a sheet of paper.
There are other and more refined means of working out the same fact, but for a rough approximation to the truth, the plan already described will answer very fairly.
A most amusing effect can be produced on the principle that every light casts its own shadow, called the "dance of death," or the "dance of the witches;" either of these agreeable subjects are drawn, and the outlines cut out of a sheet of cardboard. If a wet sheet is stretched or hung on one side of a pair of folding doors partly open, and between which the cardboard is tacked up, and the space left at the top and bottom closed with a dark cloth, directly the room before the sheet is darkened and a lighted candle held behind the figure cut out in the cardboard, one shadow or image is thrown upon the sheet, and these shadows may be increased according to the number of candles used, and if they are held by two or three persons, and moved up and down, or sideways, the shadows follow the direction of the candles, and present the appearance of a dance. (Fig. 256.)
Fig. 256.
"Before the curtain."
Fig. 257.