While all this is going on, some one has brought on the stage the loaded bottle, and as no attention is called to this, by the time the watches have been restored to the owners the conjurer introduces the bottle trick, pours out the various liquors, and eventually breaks the bottle and reproduces the borrowed article tied about the neck of the guinea-pig or dove. Many names have been given to this trick. The old-time magicians who remained for months in one theatre had to change their programmes frequently, so for one night they would present the bottle without breaking it, and on the next they would break the bottle, so as to vary the trick. This bottle trick originated in "The Inexhaustible Barrel." The first trace that I can find of this wonderful barrel is in "Hocus Pocus, Jr., The Anatomie of Legerdemain," written by Henry Dean in 1635 (Second Edition). On page 21 is described a barrel with a single spout, from which can be drawn three different kinds of liquors. This was worked precisely on the same principle as was the inexhaustible bottle trick centuries later, by shutting up the air-holes of compartments from which liquors were not flowing. Its first public appearance, according to the data in my collection, clipped from London papers of 1707 and 1712, was when the "famous water-works of the late ingenious Mr. Henry Winstanly" were exhibited by his servants for the benefit of his widow; and the exhibition included a view of "the Barrel that plays so many Liquors and is broke in pieces before the Spectators." In 1780 Dr. Desaguliers presented in London a performance entitled "A Course of Experimental Philosophy wherein the Principles of Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Pneumatics, and Optics are proved and demonstrated by more than 300 Experiments." In the course of these lectures he produced a sort of barrel, worked by holding the fingers over the air-holes. He also exposed the real source of strength of the notorious strong man of his day, John Carl von Eckeberg, who allowed horses to pull against him, permitted heavy stones to be broken on his bare chest, and who broke heavy ropes simply by stretching or straightening his knees. These lectures and exposés made Dr. Desaguliers so famous that he has been given considerable space in Sir David Brewster's "Letters on Natural Magic," published in London in 1851, in which book the various deceptions used by strong men are fully described. In fact the book is one that should be in every conjurer's library. The old Dutch books explain the barrel trick, and in 1803 Charles Hutton, professor of Woolwich Royal Academy, translated four books from Ozanam and Montucla, exposing quite a number of old conjuring tricks. The barrel trick will be found on page 94 of Volume II.