168 



LETTERS ON NATURAL MAGIC. 



Kircher also devoted himself to the production of such 

 images, and he has given in the annexed figure his method 

 of producing them. At the bottom of a polished cylin- 

 drical vessel A B he placed a figure C D, which we pre- 

 sume must have been highly illuminated from below, and 

 to the spectators who looked into the vessel in an oblique 

 direction there was exhibited an image placed vertically in 

 the air as if it were ascending at the mouth of tLe vessel. 

 Kircher assures us that he once exhibited in this manner 

 a representation of the Ascension of our Saviour, and that 



Fir. 10. 



the images were so perfect that the spectators could not 

 be persuaded, till they had attempted to handle them, that 

 they were not real substances. Although Kircher does 

 not mention it, yet it is manifest that the original figure 

 A B must have been a deformed or anamorphous drawing, 

 in order to give a reflected image of just proportions. We 

 doubt, indeed, if the representation or the figure was ever 

 exhibited. It is entirely incompatible with the laws of 

 reflection. 



Among the ingenious arid beautiful deceptions of the 

 seventeenth century, we must enumerate that of the refor- 



