Miracles of Modern Magic
Harry Whiteley
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Introduction
"IT BOILS on ice." So read the headline on many a playbill. It afforded the penny-a-liner a catchy title for his copy, rejoiced the hard hearts of pantomime comedians, who welcomed a new victim for their "gags," and, lastly, transferred bright sovereigns from the pockets of the great and gullible British public to the banking accounts of magic kettle exhibitors.
The life of the "Great Magic Kettle Act," to give the performance its full and imposing title, was singularly short for so striking a novelty; more strangely still, the very germ of its existence proved the cause of its death--we refer to liquid air. Was there ever such another glaring instance of the fallacy of providing the public with the key to a mystery?
Gone, but not forgotten! Dead, but it shall rise again! These pages are dedicated to the memory of the departed, also to nurture its successor by explaining how the act may be genuinely duplicated, yet minus the expense of liquid air.
Many and varied were the efforts of those who fain would boil their kettles at less than a guinea per litre (the price of liquid air during the craze), but we hardly know whether our sympathies were more with the professor or his audience when calcium carbide and water were the materials used to invoke a semblance of steam. If at times the "steam" was less apparent to the sight than it might have been, it is certain the odour was painfully plain to one other of the five senses.
Another equally daring discovery, that ammonia and hydrochloric acid could be pressed into service for the production of the sought-for vapour, proved but one of many attempts to arrive at a solution of a ridiculously simple problem. However greatly kettle operators differed in conjuring steam, to a unit they plumped for a double pan in which to "boil" that necessary item of the entertainment--ice cream.
Ingenious or otherwise as the magical (not magic) kettle acts proved, the thorn in the side of their proprietors were the freezing experiments. In this particular we believe even the presentors themselves will agree the results were frosts; yet we hope to show how easily the genuine experiments may be secured at trifling cost.
There is small room for doubt that some demand will always exist for a scientific kettle entertainment at a reasonable fee. Apart from this, the possibilities which must suggest themselves from practical knowledge of the subject under discussion lead us to believe that this modest manual will find a welcome in technical libraries.
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