TO MAKE A SHILLING TURN ON ITS EDGE ON THE POINT OF A NEEDLE.
Take a bottle, with a cork in its neck, and place in it, in a perpendicular position, a middle-sized needle. Fix a shilling into another cork, by cutting a nick in it; and stick into the same cork two small table-forks, opposite each other, with the handles inclining outwards and downwards. If the rim of the shilling be now poised on the point of the needle, it may easily be made to spin round without falling, as the centre of gravity is below the centre of suspension.
THE DANCING PEA.
If you stick through a pea, or small ball of pith, two pins at right angles, and defend the points with pieces of sealingwax, it may be kept in equilibrio at a short distance from the end of a straight tube, by means of a current of breath from the mouth, which imparts a rotatory motion to the pea.[10]
[10] The pins are only used to hold the pea steady before it is blown from the pipe, as the pea alone will dance quite as well.
OBLIQUITY OF MOTION.
Cut a piece of pasteboard into the [following shape], and describe on it a spiral line; cut this out with a penknife, and then suspend it on a large skewer or pin, as seen in the engraving. If the whole be now placed on a warm stove, or over the flame of a candle or lamp, it will revolve with considerable velocity. The card, after being cut into the spiral, may be made to represent a snake or dragon, and when in motion will produce a very pleasing effect.