Now to retrace our steps in the history of magic as set forth in handbills and advertisements of earlier and contemporaneous newspaper clippings describing their inventions. Under the title of "The Apple-Tree" this mechanical trick appeared on a Fawkes programme dated 1730. This was 115 years before Robert-Houdin claimed it as his invention. In 1732, just before Pinchbeck's death, it appeared on a programme used by Christopher Pinchbeck, Sr., and the younger Fawkes. In 1784 it was included in the répertoire of the Italian conjurer, Pinetti, in the guise of "Le Bouquet-philosophique." In 1822 the same trick, but this time called "An Enchanted Garden," was featured by M. Cornillot, who appeared in England as the pupil and successor of Pinetti. [Illustration: Diagram of the orange-tree trick, from Wiegleb's "The Natural Magic," published in 1794.] The trick was first explained in public print by Henri Decremps in 1784 when his famous exposé of Pinetti was published under the title of "La Magie Blanche Dévoilée," and in 1786-87 both Halle and Wiegleb exposed the trick completely in their respective works on magic. That Robert-Houdin was an omnivorous reader is proven by his own writings. That he knew the history and tricks of Pinetti is proven by his own words, for in Chapter VI. of his "Memoirs" he devoted fourteen pages to Pinetti and the latter's relations with Torrini. Now to prove that the tree tricks offered by Fawkes, Pinchbeck, Pinetti, Cornillot, and Robert-Houdin were practically one and the same, and to tell something of the history of the four magicians who featured the trick before Robert-Houdin had been heard of: [Illustration: Christopher Pinchbeck, Sr. This is the oldest and rarest authentic mezzotint in the world pertaining to the history of magic. From the Harry Houdini Collection.] [Illustration: Clipping from the London _Daily Post_ of November 30th, 1728. Used by Christopher Pinchbeck before he joined Fawkes. From the Harry Houdini Collection.] Unquestionably, the real inventor of the mysterious tree was Christopher Pinchbeck, who was England's leading mechanical genius at the close of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth. He was a man of high repute, whose history is not that of the charlatan, compiled largely from tradition, but it can be corroborated by court records, biographical works, and encyclopædias, as well as by contemporaneous newspaper clippings. [Illustration: Advertisement from the London _Daily Post_ during 1730, showing the orange tree as offered by the senior Fawkes, just previous to his death. From the Harry Houdini Collection.]