To all appearances you fill your mouth with raw cotton, and then, taking a fan in your right hand proceed to make the fire. First a stream of blue smoke will be seen curling from your lips, and after a moment or two a bright spark will appear in the mass of cotton in the mouth. This spark is quickly followed by others until at last a clear bright flame bursts forth.
Many of the audience may not believe that it is a genuine flame, but a paper may be lighted from it and passed around the room, which will soon convince the most skeptical that it certainly is bonâ fide fire.
To perform this trick, procure from a chemist a piece of amadon or German tinder. This is an inexpensive material, brown in color, and soft and silky to the touch. Tear off a small piece—perhaps as large as a dime—and roll it in a small bit of cotton wool, having already lighted one end of the tinder. Place this with other cotton in your hand, and you are ready to produce all the fire your audience may demand.
First place the cotton which conceals the lighted tinder in your mouth—it will not burn you—and then some of the loose cotton you have in your hand; and remember to draw the breath in through the nostrils, but breathe it out through the mouth. This will fan the tinder and in a moment light the cotton in front of it, so that the smoke will begin to pass out with the breath; then the sparks will appear, and finally the flame, as described above. While placing fresh cotton in the mouth, you may take advantage of the fact that your hand is before your mouth to let some of the burnt cotton fall out. By exercising a little tact your audience may be mystified for a long time, and, in fact, will probably be unable to guess the secret at all, unless you yourself divulge it to them.
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A HOME-MADE COMPASS.
Break a knitting-needle in two pieces, and magnetize one of the pieces by passing it two or three times over one of the poles of a strong magnet. Insert this piece through a small cork. Fix an ordinary needle in the end of the cork with the end projecting.
Break the other piece of the knitting-needle into two equal parts; and having wound one end of each with thread pass the other end into the cork, as seen in the illustration.
Next procure a small brass thimble, deeply indented, and balance the cork upon it by dropping melted sealing-wax upon the thread-covered ends, first on one side and then on the other, until the equilibrium is established.