Frederick A. Collins: The Magic of Science
Collins, A. Frederick: The Magic of Science
©1917 Fleming H. Revell Co., England
Hardcover, no dj, 215 pages
Collins: The Magic of Science
Image courtesy eBay seller McinhanyAuction

Comments: "A book of Scientific Amusements, which can be performed with simple apparatus". Mostly science experiments, but includes a few magic tricks as well. Well written.

Contents:

7 A Word to You

17 I. The Mystery of Matter
18 How to Begin Your Experiments
18 The Apparatus You Need
19 How to Make an Alcohol Lamp
19 How to Make a Bunsen Burner
21 The Mystery of Matter
22 Two Glasses Full Make One Full Glass
23 Other General Properties
24 Passing a Metal Through a Solid
25 Sir Walter Raleigh's Experiment
25 A Gas Works of Your Own
26 A Few Crocodile Tears
26 Pop Goes the Weasel
27 Marbles in Collision

31 II. The Giants of Force - Force, Motion and Speed
31 What Force Means
31 What Motion Is
31 How Speed Acts
32 How Time Counts
32 A Juggler's Feat: flipping a card out from under a coin
33 A Magician's Trick: a ball on a string stops where commanded
34 Conquerors of Friction
36 How to Test Your Grip
37 The Mightiest Giant of Them All
38 The Balancing Boy: balancing two forks on a cork
38 The Wonderful Horse: a balancing toy
39 A Paradoxical Cone: rolls uphill
40 Looping the Loop: spinning cup of water without spilling
42 A Loop-the-Loop Railway
42 The Obedient Egg: Egg lays down in any position
43 The Disobedient Egg: egg only lays down in one position
43 The Bottle Imp: bottle lays down only for magician
44 Prince Rupert Drops: glass drop shatters when tail is snapped
45 The Wandering Ball: ball doesn't roll straight
47 Spinning Tops
48 Why a Top Goes to Sleep
48 A Magic Top: a gyroscope
50 Practical Uses of the Gyroscope

52 III. Father Time and His Clocks
52 Marking the Flight of Time
53 In Partnership with the Sun: your hand as a sun dial
55 How to Make a Real Sun-Dial
58 Making Water Tell the Time
58 How to Make an Egg Boiler
59 The Hour Glass: an improvement on the water clock
60 A Simple Pendulum
62 The Modern Clock Pendulum
62 The Modern Clock Escapement
63 A Boy's Clock
64 To Prove the Earth Turns on Its Axis.

65 IV. Some Curious Machines - Principles of Machines
65 Six Simple Machines
70 Friction in Machines
70 The Pantograph and How to Make It
71 The Peaucellier Cell and What It Does
72 The Ellipse and an Ellipsograph
74 Wheels that Run by Friction
75 Elliptical and Square Spur Gears
76 A Universal Joint
77 A Flexible Shaft
77 The Marvellous Wondergraph

80 Chapter V Laughing Water - Liquids at Rest and In Motion
80 What Water Is
81 How Water Acts
81 Making Balls of Water
82 An Easily Made Compass
83 The Magic Magnetic Sieve: water passes through a sieve, and then doesn't
84 Making Soap Films
85 The Water Hammer
86 The Floating Liquids
86 The Press of Brahmin
88 The Hydraulic Ram
89 The Fox Trot Ball: ball held up by stream of water
90 Old Dr. Barker's Mill

93 VI. Airy Fairy Gases
93 What Air Is
94 How Air Behaves
94 The Sucker Experiment
95 A Miniature Diving Bell
96 The Magic Glass: paper clings to glass
97 The Dribble Bottle: a gag
97 Filling an Inverted Tumbler
98 How to Make a Barometer: be careful with Mercury
100 Making Water Run Up Hill
101 The Cartesian Diver
102 A Paper Glider
104 The Tango Ball: ball held up by stream of air
105 The Card and Spool Paradox: paper stunt
105 The Boomerang Card: making a paper boomerang
107 Pitching a Fade-a-Way Ball: how a baseball curve ball works
107 The Hot Air Balloon
109 The Chinese Snake Wheel: novelty
110 Compressed Air and Compressors
111 Vacuum and Air Pumps
111 Making Liquid Air

112 VII. Wonderful Waves
112 Waves and What They Are
113 Water Waves and Ripples
114 What Sound Means
115 Sound Waves in Air, Water and Solids
116 An Electric Bell in Vacuo
117 The Megaphone
118 The Xylophone and Tubephone
119 How to Raise the Wind
119 Simple Sympathetic Vibration
120 The Shrieking Flame
121 How to Make an Organ Pipe
123 Sympathetic Noise at a Distance
124 A Whistle That Makes No Sound
125 The Noise of a Bullet's Flight
125 The Maxim Gun Silencer
126 The Art of Ventriloquism
126 - The Secret
126 - The First Steps in Learning the Art
127 - Throwing Your Voice to a Distance
128 - The Art of Imitating Sounds
128 - How to Make and Use a Ventrilophone

130 VIII. Liquid Fire - Heat and Combustion
130 Making Fire in All Ages
132 Ways of Producing Heat
132 Lighting a Fire by Hard Work
133 An Easier Way of Lighting a Fire
134 Ye Old Time Flint and Steel
135 Making Steam by Friction
136 The Fire Syringe
136 Hero's Steam Engine
137 Branca's Steam Engine
138 How is Your Pulse?
139 A Miniature Refrigerating Plant
140 A Self-Lighting Gas Jet
140 A Human Hair Barometer
142 Making the Sun Light Your Fire
143 A Crookes Radiometer
144 The Great Natural Gas Trick

145 IX. The Modern Pucks - Magnetism and Electricity
145 A Word About Magnetism
146 The Lode Stone of the Chinese
146 A Steel Horseshoe Magnet
147 An Artificial Magnet
148 Steel Ring and Disk Magnets
149 Substances that are Attracted and Repelled by Magnets
149 Magnetic Screens
150 A Little About Electricity
150 The Electron of the Greeks
152 A Simple Electric Battery
153 Making and Using a Galvanometer
154 Making Electricity Direct from Heat
155 A Copper Disk Dynamo and Motor
156 Something About Electro-Magnetism
156 A Wire Ring That is a Magnet
157 A Simple Wireless Telephone
159 A Ruhmkorff, Induction or Spark Coil

162 X. Rainbow Colors - Light and Shadows
162 What Light Is
163 How the Eye Works
164 Looking Through a Philadelphia Brick: a periscope
166 Bending a Ray of Light
167 The Prism and Lenses and How They Act
170 Optical Instruments and How They Work
170 - The Camera
171 - The Spy-Glass or Telescope
171 - The Spy-Glass or Terrestrial Telescope
172 - The Astronomical Telescope
174 - The Compound Microscope
175 - The Magic Lantern and Stereopticon
176 - The Stereoscope
177 How Colors Are Made
178 Coming Events and Colored Shadows
179 Splitting Up the Sun's Light
182 How Colors and Speed Make White Light
182 Light that is Polarized
184 A Gem that Polarizes Light
186 Liquids that Change Their Colors
187 Calling Spirits From the Vasty Deep

188 XI. Invisible Light - Above and Below the Visible Spectrum
188 Ultra-Violet Rays
190 Infra-Red Rays
191 Wireless Waves
193 The Electric Discharge in Gases
193 - Geissler Tubes and Fluorescence
194 - Crookes Tubes, the Cathode Rays and Electrons
195 The Roentgen or X-Rays
198 Radioactivity and Radium
200 The Spintharoscope
201 The Radium Clock

203 XII. Some Other Strange Things - Even If They Are Not True
203 The Fourth Dimension or Hyper-Space
205 Animal Magnetism and Mesmerism
207 The Divining Rod or Finding Stick
208 Planchette and the Dominant Idea
209 The Dream of Perpetual Motion
211 The Chess Player and Other Automatons
214 A Patent Ghost and How It Materialized


Previous