To illustrate the first of these laws,—a marble will never move from the ground of itself, and once put in motion, it will preserve that motion until some other power operates upon it in a contrary direction.
With regard to playing Lag Out so as to win, you must further understand the principle of reflected motion. If you throw your marble in a straight line against the wall, you find that it comes back to you nearly in a straight line again. If you throw it ever so slightly on one side, or obliquely, it will fly off obliquely on the opposite side. If you throw the marble from the point C to the point B, it will fly off in the direction of the point A, and if a marble lay there it would hit it; but if you threw it from the point D, you would stand no chance.
In science, the angle C, B, D, is called the angle of incidence, and D, B, A, is called the angle of reflection.
THREE HOLES.
Three Holes is not a bad game. To play it, you must make three small holes about four feet apart: then the first shot tries to shoot a marble into the first hole. If he gets in, he goes from that to the second, and then to the third hole, after which he returns, and having passed up and down three times, he thus wins the game. If he cannot get in the first hole, the second player tries; and when he stops short at a hole, the third, and so on. After any player has shot his marble into a hole, he may fire at any adversary's marble to drive him away, and, if he hits him, he has a right to shoot again, either for the hole or any other player. The game is won by the player who gets first into the last hole and works his way back again to the first, when he takes all his adversaries' marbles.
ARCHES.
To play arches, the players must be provided with a board of the following shape, with arches cut therein; each arch being a little more than the diameter of a marble, and each space between the arches the same.