PROFESSOR PEPPER'S GHOST. SPEAKING HEAD, ETC. 401 



liquids ; and to exhibit all these operations to a large 

 number of persons at once, opens a new application of the 

 magic lantern which clever operators will no doubt turn 

 to account ; any one familiar with the manipulation of 

 apparatus will know how to contrive the tanks for the 

 different purposes." 



The eminently-ingenious Professor Pepper also, in 

 cor^unction with the other talented gentlemen forming 

 the staff of the Royal Polytechnic Institution of London, 

 has distinguished himself by great success not only 

 in showing all the illusions practised by charlatans who 

 claim a higher authority than mere skill and dexterity for 

 their seances, but in the forestalling by their inventive 

 genius discoveries which otherwise might have been used 

 in course of time to deceive and operate upon the super- 

 stitious by vile and unprincipled pretenders to the super- 

 natural. 



Among other novelties, Professor Pepper's ghost, the 

 speaking head, floating cherubs, automatic Leotard, &c., 

 deserve special mention and the highest praise. The 

 ghost is got up in a very simple yet remarkably effective 

 way, and suggests the idea that the Professor must have 

 caught sight of his own image in a plate-glass window 

 more than once before he engaged in spirit-making. This 

 illusion is easily accomplished by placing a large sheet of 

 plate glass B F on the stage before a dark-green cloth under 

 a subdued light, and throwing the reflection of a person 

 acting the ghost upon it by having him placed in front in 

 such a position as to cause his image to appear at the 

 point desired. For this purpose the person acting the 

 ghost must be placed with a screen of dark-green cloth 

 behind him, as shown in the following diagram. In this 

 way the reflection of the dark-green cloth A B behind the 

 figure will not appear, but will blend with the colour of 

 the dark-green cloth C D behind the sheet of plate glass, 



