The “Gingerbread” Fair this year showed a two-headed woman produced by a slightly different process, the body and head of the woman being seen directly, and the second head alone being seen by reflection from a glass. This phenomenon may be varied to infinity, so to speak. To cite only a few examples, there may be produced by the same process a decapitated person who talks; a decapitated person who holds his head in his hand, and a Judith and Holofernes, the head of the latter being held by the hair by the former.—La Nature.
The Mysterious Voice.
“Some time ago,” says a correspondent of La Nature, “I was walking around in a side show in which were exhibited mechanical portraits, when I was surprised to hear myself called: ‘Monsieur! Monsieur!’ * * * I discovered that the voice came from a tin trumpet, which was held in the mouth of a negro’s head made of wood, and suspended by a small brass chain from semicircles of iron supported by a wooden frame” (Fig. 1). The effect produced on the spectators by this speaking head was one of universal astonishment, and no one was capable of solving the mystery. The arrangement for producing the illusion is very simple, however, and is thus explained by the writer above referred to:
FIG. 1.—THE SPEAKING HEAD.
A person hidden behind the scenes speaks into a tube two or three centimeters in diameter which runs from that point to the wooden frame, and in the interior of the horizontal and upright pieces of which it passes till it reaches the suspended head at A, as shown by the dotted lines, E, D, C, B, A. The voice thus transmitted is reflected from the sides of the trumpet, H, to the person holding a conversation with the head.
FIG. 2.—THE SPEAKING GLASS CASE.
This experiment, which is analogous to the one that precedes, was explained by Nicholson, in 1832, in his Journal de Physique. Although at first offered as a physical experiment, under the title of an “experiment in acoustics,” it has since changed name and master, and is now dignified by the imposing name of “invisible girl.”
