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

You offer the long card, or any other that you know, and as the person who has drawn it holds it in his hand, you pretend to feel the pips or figure on the under side, by your fore-finger; or you sagaciously smell to it, and then pronounce what card it is.

If it be the long card, you may give the pack to the person who drew it, and leave him at liberty either to replace it or not. Then taking the pack, you feel immediately whether it be there or not, and, shuffling the cards in a careless manner, without looking at them, you pronounce accordingly.

The Inverted Cards.

Prepare a pack of cards, by cutting one end of them about one-tenth of an inch narrower than the other; then offer the pack to any one, that he may draw a card; place the pack on the table, and observe carefully if he turn the card while he is looking at it; if he do not, when you take the pack from the table, you offer the other end of it for him to insert that card; but if he turn the card, you then offer him the same end of the pack. You afterwards offer the cards to a second or third person, for them to draw or replace a card in the same manner. You then let any one shuffle the cards, and, taking them again into your own hand, as you turn them up one by one, you easily perceive by the touch which are those cards that have been inverted, and, laying the first of them down on the table, you ask the person if that card be his; and if he say no, you ask the same of the second person; and if he say no, you tell the third person it is his card; and so of the second or third cards. You shall lay the pack on the table after each person has drawn his card, and turn it dexterously in taking it up, when it is to be turned, that the experiment may not appear to depend on the cards being inverted.

The Transmuted Cards.

In a common pack of cards let the ace of hearts and nine of spades be something larger than the rest. With the juice of lemon draw over the ace of hearts a spade, large enough to cover it entirely, and on each side draw four other spades.

Present the pack to two persons, so adroitly, that one of them shall draw the ace of hearts, and the other the nine of spades, and tell him who draws the latter, to burn it on a chafing-dish. You then take the ashes of that card, put them into a small metal box, and give it to him that has the ace of hearts, that he may himself put that card into the box and fasten it. Then put the box for a short time on the chafing-dish, and let the person who put the card in it take it off, and take out the card, which he will see is changed into the nine of spades.

The Convertible Cards.

To perform this amusement you must observe, that there are several letters which may be changed into others, without any appearance of the alteration, as the a into d, the c into a, e, d, g, o, or q; the i into b, d, or l; the l into t; the o into a, d, g, or q; the v into y, &c.

Take a parcel of cards, suppose twenty, and on one of them write with juice of lemon or onion, or vitriol and water, the word law, (these letters should not be joined;) and on the other, with the same ink, the words old woman; then holding them to the fire, they both become visible. Now, you will observe, that by altering the a in the word law into d, and adding o before the l, and oman after the w, it becomes old woman. Therefore you make those alterations with the invisible ink, and let it remain so. On the rest of the cards you write any words you think fit.