INFLAMMABLE AIR.
Put a sponge saturated with ether in a bladder. Let some one inflate this apparently empty vessel with common air with a bellows. On applying a lighted match to a nozzle tied in the mouth of the bladder the gas will take fire and burn, and the spectators will be compelled to believe you rendered common air inflammable.
CURIOUS VIVIFICATION.
Take any number of two-inch tubes, ten inches long, and close the bottom except one small hole. Place a piston in each, as in a syringe. In the bottom place a worm spring under a figure of a man or woman, each one different and in a different attitude, and of such a size as to fill up the hollow cylinders.
Set them all in a circular wooden frame, and create a vacuum under each piston by pushing them down, stopping the hole, and drawing them up to any height you please.
On placing the frame in the receiver, and exhausting the air, the force of the spring being greater than the friction of the piston and the weight of the figure, they will rise up gradually in their proper attitudes. On admitting the air into the receiver they will retire.
If the tubes be inflated with air, they will be extended when the pressure of that in the receiver is taken.
