60 LETTERS ON NATURAL MAGIC. 



and B, above five feet above the floor, and let 

 them be filled with plate glass, and surrounded 

 with a picture frame, so as to have the appearance 

 of two mirrors, Place two mirrors, E, F, one 

 behind each opening at A and B, inclined 45 to 

 the partition MN, and so large that a person 

 looking into the plates of glass at A and B will 

 not see their edges. When this is done it is 

 obvious that a person looking into the mirror A 

 will not see himself, but will see any person or 

 figure placed at B. If he believes that he is 

 looking into a common mirror at A, his astonish- 

 ment will be great at seeing himself transformed 

 into another person, or into any living animal 

 that may be placed at B. The success of this 

 deception would be greatly increased if a plane 

 mirror, suspended by a pulley, could be brought 

 immediately behind the plane glass at A, and 

 drawn up from it at pleasure. The spectator at 

 A, having previously seen himself in this move- 

 able mirror, would be still more astonished when 

 he afterwards perceived in the same place a face 

 different from his own. By drawing the move- 

 able mirror half up, the spectator at A might see 

 half of his own face joined to half of the face 

 placed at B ; but in the present day the most 

 ignorant persons are so familiar with the pro- 

 perties of a looking-glass, that it would be very 

 difficult to employ this kind of deception with the 

 same success which must have attended it in a 

 more illiterate age. The optical reader will easily 

 see that the mirror F and the apartment NCD 

 are not absolutely necessary for carrying on this 

 deception ; for the very same effects will be pro- 

 duced if the person at B is stationed at G, and 



