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AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
4r61 
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OILlIlio 
Magicians’ TtViclcs. 
An exhibition by an expert performer of slight-of-liand, 
or legerdemain,—which is the French for the same 
tiling—is exceedingly amusing. Things are disposed of 
in a wonderful manner, to appear in a manner equally 
strange. Handkerchiefs are cut up and burned, to reap¬ 
pear whole from the ashes. A watch is pounded up in a 
mortar, and the pieces tired from a pistol, and the watch 
appears whole and in good order in some out-of-the-way 
place. Some of these tricks display a great amount of 
ingenuity in contriving, and skill in executing them. 
Of course, they arc all illusions, but they are interesting 
as showing bow readily our senses can be deceived. We 
know a distinguished professor who takes pains to visit 
such performances, for the purpose of exercising his 
acuteness in finding out how the tricks are done. The 
performer makes a great deal of talk, and is constantly 
trying to fix the 
attention of the 
spectator's upon 
some unimpor¬ 
tant thing, while 
he is doing some¬ 
thing which he 
would not have 
seen. One of the 
most common 
tricks called the 
dice trick, will 
show how a large 
class of these 
deceptions are 
played. The performer has a large dice which he 
places in a hat to show that it will go into it, and then 
takes it out again. The dice is put on the table and 
covered with a leathern case, and then is told to pass into 
the hat. Upon lifting up the case there is nothing of the 
dice to be seen, but upon turning over the hat, it is there. 
The trick when seen for the first time by those not famil¬ 
iar with such matters, is surprising. The engraving shows 
how it is done. The dice has a tin cover which fits it 
exactly, and is painted like the real one, the real dice and 
the false one over it are placed in the hat together, and 
when the performer appears to take it out again lie only 
slips off the false, and leaves the solid one in the hat. 
The false one or cover appears to the spectators to be 
solid, as it is held so that the bottom cannot be seen. The 
leathern cover is placed over this. When the cover is 
lifted the performer slightly squeezes its sides and lifts 
the false dice at the same time, and there appears to 
be nothing under it. Both the interior of the fillse dice 
and that of the cover should be painted black. The en¬ 
graving shows the true and false dice, the hat and cover. 
The ©octor’s TTalli*»—Altosjtt Mak¬ 
ing a, iFire. 
The methods of making a fire that I have already de¬ 
scribed, all passed out of use long ago—probably before 
any of the boys and girls who read this were born. Now 
that I come to describe the methods at present in use— 
every one of you has guessed that I mean friction match¬ 
es—I find a difficulty. I have to speak of phosphorus, a 
substance so remarkable that it is not easily described, 
and so dangerous to handle, or to have anything to do 
with, that I cannot advise you to get a piece and examine 
it for yourselves. Yet every boy and girl always carries 
a considerable amount of this very dangerous and poison¬ 
ous article about, and even takes it to bed with them. 
“Where?” In your bones. Bones are half their 
weight—more or less, in different animals and different 
bones—of phosphate of lime, and this, to speak in round 
numbers, is about one-fifth 
of its weight of phosphorus. 
The phosphorus is got out 
of the bones by a very com- 
■ plicated chemical process, 
0= which could not be easily ex- 
j|! plained. The material as 
| it comes tons is in sticks 
somewhat larger than a lead 
pencil, and if fresh, it looks 
much like sticks of barley candy, and is so soft that it 
can be cut with a knife. What is the strangest thing 
about it is the ease with which it takes fire. A slight 
rubbing will inflame it, and if exposed to the hot weath¬ 
er of summer, will take fire at once. You see I was right 
in saying that phosphorus was a dangerous thing, and 
you have wondered how it is kept and handled. It is 
kept under water, and it is cut underwater. Many per- 
Fig. 1.— BLOCK MATCHES. 
sons have been badly burned by handling it, and I recol¬ 
lect of a fire which was caused by it. The tin-can in 
which the phosphorus was kept became rusty, and the 
Water gradually leaked out; when warm weather came 
on, the phosphorus caught fire, and much damage was 
done. Phosphorus was discovered 200 years ago, but it 
is within my recollection that people found out how it 
could be made useful in preparing matches with which 
to make a fire. One of the earliest ways of using it, was 
to place some phosphorus and wax in a bottle which was 
set in warm water until the two melted, the bottle was 
then turned around so that 
on cooling, the mixture 
would cover the inside of the 
bottle like a coat of varnish. 
A common sulphur match 
being thrust into the bottle, 
and pulled out again brought 
outalittle phosphorus which 
took fire, and thus lighted the match. After a while the 
phosphorus was applied to the ends of matches, and to 
do this it had to be so prepared that it would only take 
fire by a smart rub. The first step was to powder the 
phosphorus. You will wonder how a waxy substance 
which takes fire so readily can be powdered. The phos¬ 
phorus if dropped into hot water will melt. If a bottle 
containing hot water and melted phosphorus be shaken 
violently until cold, the phosphorus will be in a fine 
powder. The powdered phosphorus was mixed with 
gum water or glue, a little saltpetre or chlorate of potash; 
and with this mixture the ends of sulphur matches were 
tipped. When dry they would ignite by rubbing them 
against any hard substance. Since the original friction 
matches or “ loco-focos,” as they were first called, were 
invented, various improvements have been made not 
only in the composition but their shape. Some of the 
early matches were made in blocks like that shown in 
figure 1; the block was sawed in two directions, but not 
quite through, and the matches were left joined together 
at. one end, and were separated by breaking them off as 
wanted. Another style was to have the wood sawed like 
a comb, as in figure 2. This was an improvement on the 
block style. Now the best matches are made from round 
sticks neatly made by machinery. When we compare 
the ease with which one can get a fire, by a slight blow 
of our common matches, with the laborious method of 
the savage with his two pieces of wood, or even with the 
flint and steel, we can see that great improvements have 
heen made. Indeed, many of our conveniences of life 
which are so common to us that we scarcely give them a 
thought, are as much better than those of our grandpa¬ 
rents as the friction match is superior to the flint and 
steel. Our ways of getting a fire are now very easy, but 
it must be remembered that the danger of accidental fires 
is much increased. No trouble could come of the flint 
and steel, but carelessness with matches has destroyed 
manya dwelling. Never leave a match lying about loose, 
but while you regard it as a friend, remember that it can 
be a dangerous enemy if some accident wakes up the 
power that sleeps in the little matter upon its tip. More¬ 
over recollect that the substance upon the ends of the 
matches is a deadly poison when taken into the stomach, 
and see that they are carefully kept out of the reach 
of children too young not to know the serious results 
that might follow from putting them into their mouths. 
Fig. 2.—CARD MATCHES. 
A IPleasiaDg- ^ABairlig'Sg-. 
Hero is a chance for boys who like to exercise their 
skill in toy-making. The central figure, 1, shows the toy 
complete. It is a handle which supports two wind-mills 
or crosses, just >as you choose to call them. A string 
runs through the handle and fastens to a button at the 
lower end; by pulling out the string the mill revolves; 
the string goes back again, and is to be pulled out again, 
and so by a series of pulls the arms will revolve very 
rapidly. Figure 2 
shows the handle. It 
has at its top a large 
hole, and crosswise 
of this another hole, 
through which pass¬ 
es the shaft or piece 
which holds the 
two mills; besides 
this, it has a small 
hole throughout its 
whole length through 
which the string 
runs. One of the 
mills or crosses is 
shown in figure 3. 
The whole thing be¬ 
ing put together, and 
the string wound up 
on the shaft, a pull 
at the string unwinds it and causes tile crosses to 
go around, these get so much momentum, or liead-way as 
the boys say, that they keep on moving after the string is 
unwound, and have force enough to wind it up again, 
though in a different direction from what it was before; 
the next pull reverses the motion, and so on. If the arms 
whirligig . 
are of some dark color with white spots on them, the 
effect will be all the more pleasing. A toy like this 
would be a nice thing for an ingenious boy to make for a 
holiday present to some of his younger friends. 
M-sliiiig' C'afClectioiasi. 
Many boys and girls take a fancy to make collections 
of something. Some collect postage stamps, others 
coins, and we have seen very large collections of buttons 
in which there were no two alike. The desire to make 
as large a collection as possible, without regard to any¬ 
thing else, we do not approve of; but it is very pleasing 
to see young people collecting specimens which shall 
teach them something. A collection of postage stamps 
made for the sake of getting the greatest possible num¬ 
ber, is of no more use than so many pieces of newspaper ; 
but if one will read about the country to which each 
stamp belongs, then something interesting and useful 
may come of this postage stamp mania. So with coins— 
collections of which, at least the foreign ones, very few 
young people are able to make. These can lead to his¬ 
torical studies. After all, we prefer much to see young 
folks take to collecting natural objects. Those of you 
who live in the country can find an abundance of things 
more interesting than postage stamps, or even coins. 
We once saw a large collection—we have forgotten how 
many specimens, of all the different kind of beans—a 
dozen or so of each kind put in a neat little paper tray, 
and correctly named. A nice collection would be all the 
different kinds of wheat—indeed, we should much like 
to have such a collection ourselves. Then how interest¬ 
ing it would be to have specimens of the seeds of every 
kind of troublesome weed. The eye having become 
accustomed to the appearance of these seeds, would be 
able to detect them at once among seed grain, or other 
kinds of seeds. Another collection we would suggest to> 
the older boys, is one of all the native woods of the farm, 
or the neighborhood ; very few people know any but the 
larger kinds of wood. A collection with specimens to 1 
show the bark, the end 3f the wood and the grain would 
be something worth looking at. Then there are the in¬ 
sects which are injurious to crops, which would make 
not only a useful but a really handsome collection, and 
would lead to a study and close observation of the habits 
of the insects. Of course, one will take a fancy to one 
thing and one to another, and in a family of several boys 
and girls, a museum may be formed which will be worth 
showing to others. Those who are old enough to study 
plants, minerals, insects, etc., will, of course, make col¬ 
lections of specimens to illustrate these studies. Our 
object was to suggest something that seemed to us better 
worth doing than accumulating postage stamps or buttons. 
Aew fl'iDy.ales Bo T»e AissWor 
No. 364.—A quotation from Shakespeare. 
No. 365. Arithmetical Problem. —Mr. Jones having 100 
yards of earth to dig, A offers to dig it for one dollar per 
yard, but just as Jones is about accepting A’s offer, B 
comes along and says he will dig it for 75 cents per yard, 
Jones, by way of compromise, tells both A and B to gq 
to work, but that each must only dig as many yards, at 
his rate, as will give each the same amount of money. 
How many yards must each dig, and what is the amount 
that each should receive? 
No. 366. Illustrated Piebus —A well-known truth poetit 
cally expressed. 
