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.
Let a person stand upon a stool made of baked wood, or upon a cake of
wax, and hold a chain which communicates with the branch. On turning
the wheel he will become electrified; his whole body forming part of
the prime conductor; and he will emit sparks whenever he is touched by
a person standing on the floor.
If the electrified person put his finger, or a rod of iron, into a
dish containing warm spirits of wine, it will be immediately in a
blaze; and if there be a wick or thread in the spirit, that
communicates with a train of gunpowder, he may be made to blow up a
magazine, or set a city on fire, with a piece of cold iron, and at the
same time be ignorant of the mischief he is doing.
_The Inconceivable Shock._
Put in a person's hand a wire that is fixed on to the hook that comes
from the chain, which communicates with one side of the battery, and
in his other hand put a small wire with a hook at the end of it, which
you direct him to fix on to a hook which comes from the other chain.
On attempting to do this, he will instantly receive a shock from his
body, without being able to guess the cause.
Care should be taken that the shock be not too strong; and regard
should be had to the constitution and disposition of the party, as a
shock that would hardly affect one person, might be productive of
very serious consequences to another.
Much entertainment may be derived from concealing the chain that
communicates with that which proceeds from the outside of the battery,
under a carpet, and placing the wire that communicates with the chain
from the inside, in such a manner that a person may put his hand on it
without suspicion, at the same time that his feet are upon the other
wire.
The whole company may be made to partake of the shock, by joining
hands, and forming a circle. The experiment may also be varied if they
tread upon each other's toes, or lay their hands upon each other's
heads. It might happen, by the latter method, that the whole company
would be struck to the ground; but it will be productive of no danger,
and very little inconvenience; on the contrary, it has happened that
they have neither heard nor felt the shock.
* * * * *
To exhibit the five following amusements in electricity, the room in
which they are performed must be darkened.
_The Miraculous Luminaries._
You must previously prepare the following phosphorus: Calcine common
oyster-shells, by burning them in the fire for half an hour; then
reduce them to powder; of the clearest of which take three parts, and
of flowers of sulphur one part; put the mixture into a crucible, about
an inch and a half deep. Let it burn in a strong fire for rather
better than an hour; and when it is cool, turn it out and break it in
pieces; and, taking those pieces into a dark place, scrape off the
parts that shine brightest, which, if good, will be a white powder.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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