Endless Amusement: A Collection of Nearly 400 Entertaining Experiments in Various Branches of Science; Including Acoustics, Electricity, Magnetism, Arithmetic, Hydraulics, Mechanics, Chemistry, Hydrostatics, Optics; Wonders of the Air-Pump; All the Popular Tricks and Changes of the Cards, &c., &c. to Which is Added, a Complete System of Pyrotechny; Or, the Art of Making Fire-works.Unknown
Science
Endless Amusement: A Collection of Nearly 400 Entertaining Experiments in Various Branches of Science; Including Acoustics, Electricity, Magnetism, Arithmetic, Hydraulics, Mechanics, Chemistry, Hydrostatics, Optics; Wonders of the Air-Pump; All the Popular Tricks and Changes of the Cards, &c., &c. to Which is Added, a Complete System of Pyrotechny; Or, the Art of Making Fire-works.
Opposite a window into which the sun shines direct suspend a glass
globe, filled with clean water, by means of a string that runs over a
pulley, so that the sun's rays may fall on it. Then drawing the globe
gradually up, you will observe, when it comes to a certain height, and
by placing yourself in a proper situation, a purple colour in the
glass; and by drawing it up gradually higher, the other prismatic
colours, blue, green, yellow, and red, will successively appear; after
which, the colours will disappear, till the globe is raised to about
fifty degrees, when they will again appear, but in an inverted order,
the red appearing first, and the blue or violet last; on raising the
globe a little higher, they will totally vanish.
_The Æolipiles._
The æolipile is a small hollow globe of brass, or other metal, in
which a slender neck or pipe is inserted. This ball, when made
red-hot, is cast into a vessel of water, which will rush into its
cavity, then almost void of air. The ball being then set on the fire,
the water, by the rarefaction of the internal air, will be forced out
in steam by fits, with great violence, and with strange noise.
If to the necks of two or more of these balls, there be fitted those
calls that are used by fowlers and hunters, and the balls placed on
the fire, the steam rushing from them will make such a horrible noise,
that it will astonish any person who is ignorant of the contrivance.
_The Talking Busts._
Procure two busts of plaster of Paris; place them on pedestals, on the
opposite sides of the room. Let a thin tube, of an inch diameter, pass
from the ear of one head through the pedestal, under the floor, and go
up to the mouth of the other; taking care that the end of the tube
that is next the ear of the one head, be considerably larger than that
end which comes to the mouth of the other.
Now, when a person speaks quite low into the ear of one bust, the
sound is reverberated through the length of the tube, and will be
distinctly heard by any one placing his ear to the mouth of the other.
It is not necessary that the tube should come to the lips of the bust.
If there be two tubes, one going to the ear, and the other to the
mouth of each head, two persons may converse together, by whispers,
without the knowledge of any person who may stand in the middle of the
room.
_The Inanimate Oracle._
Place a bust on a pedestal in the corner of a room, and let there be
two tubes, as in the preceding article, one to go from the mouth, and
the other from the ear, through the pedestal and the floor to an under
apartment; there may be also wires, that go from the under jaw and the
eyes of the bust, by which they may be easily moved.
A person being placed in the room underneath, and applying his ear to
one of the tubes at a signal given, will hear any question asked, and
can immediately reply, by applying his mouth to the tube which
communicates below, at the same time moving the eyes by the wire, to
accompany his speech.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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