Endless Amusement / A Collection of Nearly 400 Entertaining Experiments in Various Branches of Science; Including Acoustics, Electricity, Magnetism, Arithmetic, Hydraulics, Mechanics, Chemistry, Hydrostatics, Optics; Wonders of the Air-Pump; All the Popular Tricks and Changes of the Cards, &c., &c. to Which is Added, a Complete System of Pyrotechny; Or, the Art of Making Fire-works.

by Unknown

Pipes of Communication for Water.

They may be used under water, but must be a little thicker in the paper than those for land. Having rolled a sufficient number of pipes, and kept them till dry, wash them over with drying oil, and set them to dry; but when you oil them, leave about an inch and a half at each end dry, for joints; as, if they were oiled all over, when you come to join them, the paste will not stick where the paper is greasy: after the leaders are joined, and the paste dry, oil the joints. These pipes will lie many hours under water, without receiving any damage.

Horizontal Water-Wheels.

To make horizontal wheels for the water, first get a large wooden bowl without a handle; then have an eight-sided wheel, made of a flat board 18 inches diameter, so that the length of each side may nearly be seven inches: in all the sides cut a groove for the cases to lie in. This wheel being made, nail it on the top of the bowl; then take four eight-ounce cases, filled with a proper charge, each about six inches in length. Now, to clothe the wheel with these cases, get some whitish-brown paper, and cut it into slips; being pasted all over on one side, take one of the cases, and roll one of the slips of paper about an inch and a half on its end, so that there will remain about two inches and a half of the paper hollow from the end of the case: tie this case on one of the sides of the wheel, near the corners of which must be holes bored, through which put the packthread to tie the cases: having tied on the first case at the neck and end, put a little meal-powder in the hollow paper; then paste a slip of paper on the end of another case, the head of which put into the hollow paper on the first, allowing a sufficient distance from the tail of one to the head of the other, for the pasted paper to bend without tearing: tie on the second case as you did the first, and so on with the rest, except the last, which must be closed at the end, unless it is to communicate to any thing on the top of the wheel, such as fire-pumps or brilliant fires, fixed in holes cut in the wheel, and fired by the last or second case, as the fancy directs: six, eight, or any number, may be placed on the top of the wheel, provided they are not too heavy for the bowl.

Before trying on the cases, cut the upper part of all their ends, except the last, a little shelving, that the fire from one may play over the other, without being obstructed by the case. Wheel-cases have no clay driven in their ends, nor pinched, but are always left open, only the last, or those which are not to lead fire, which must be well secured.

Water-Mines.

For water-mines you must have a bowl with a wheel on it, made in the same manner as the water-wheel; only in its middle there must be a hole, of the same diameter as that of the intended mine. These mines are tin pots, with strong bottoms, and a little more than two diameters in length: the mine must be fixed in the hole in the wheel, with its bottom resting on the bowl; then loaded with serpents, crackers, stars, small water-rockets, &c., in the same manner as pots of aigrettes; but in their centre fix a case of Chinese fire, or a small gerbe, which must be lighted at the beginning of the last case on the wheel. These wheels are to be clothed as usual.

Fire Globes for the Water.

Bowls for water-globes must be very large, and the wheels on them of ten sides: on each side nail a piece of wood four inches long; and on the outside of each piece cut a groove, wide enough to receive about one-fourth of the thickness of a four-ounce case: these pieces of wood must be nailed in the middle of each face of the wheel, and fixed in an oblique direction, so that the fire from the cases may incline upwards: the wheel being thus prepared, tie in each groove a four-ounce case filled with a grey charge; then carry a leader from the tail of one case to the mouth of the other.

Globes for these wheels are made of two in hoops, with their edges outwards, fixed one within the other, at right angles. The diameter of these hoops must be rather less than that of the wheel. Having made the globe, drive in the centre of the wheel an iron spindle which must stand perpendicular, and its length be four or six inches more than the diameter of the globe.