IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR PRODUCING OPTICAL AND MECHANICAL ILLUSIONS IN THEATRICAL EXHIBITIONS
Year: 1873

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edmund Edwards at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 2nd
September 1873.
I, EDMUND EDWARDS, of 38, Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane,
in the County of Middlesex, Engineer and Patent Agent, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS
FOR PRODUCING OPTICAL AND MECHANICAL ILLUSIONS IN THEATRICAL EXHIBITIONS,"
to be as follows :—
My Invention consists, first, of an improved arrangement of optical
and mechanical apparatus by which a living person or any other article
may be apparently contained in a transparent vessel, and may then
appear to be suddenly or gradually withdrawn from such vessol. For
this purpose I take a table of suitable height and having four equi-
distant legs and a top, and I arrange this table in a suitable position
upon the stage where the performanco is to take placo with its two
front legs parallel with the front of the stage. From one of tho front
legs to the opposite back leg I fix a vortical mirror reaching from the
top of the table to the ground, and I arrange scenes or backgrounds

page_text: I
at or near the sides and back of the table in such a manner that one
of such side scenes may be reflected from the mirror to the spectators,
to whom it appears to be at the back of the table.
In front of the side scene last described I place (out of sight of the
spectators) a bottle, cage, or other receptacle from which a sufficient
part of the back is removed to admit any desired article, preferably,
a living child, which then appears to the spectators to be contained
in the bottle which is apparently standing underneath the back of
the table. In the top of the tablo I make a suitable opening as
nearly as possible over the place where the reflection of the bottle
appears to the spectators to be, and underneath this opening I provido
another child (if a child is the object exhibited) as much like as
possible to the one contained in the bottle, and at a given signal I
project the second child up through the opening in the table, and at
the same time I cause the first child to disappear, either by removing
it through a trap in the floor beneath the bottle, or through an opening
in the drapery forming the side sceno at the back of the bottle. Tho
apparent effect to the spectators is that the child (or other article) lcaps
out of the bottle and descends upon the table.
Fire, water, or smoke may be also made to appear to escape from
the bottle by being caused to rise through the opening in the table.
The bottle itself may be made to rise through a trap door in the stage,
and it may be arranged to be supported upon glass or other suitable
legs.
The following is another novel illusion which I cause by means of
the same or similar arrangement of apparatus:-In the top of the
table immediately behind the mirror, and about the centre of the
table laterally I make an opening over which I adjust a vase, box,
or other suitable vessel having no bottom. The exhibitor of the appa-
ratus may put his hand into this vessel and withdraw from it toys,
flowers, bon-bons, wine, or any other articles whatever, living or dead
(of sufficiently small size to pass through the opening), which are
handed to him by a confederate concealed behind the mirror, the
effect of the latter being to cause the space under the table to appear
to the spectators to be perfectly empty.
In order to make the illusion more perfect a fountain or other
suitable object may be placed where the bottle was placed in the

page_text: arrangement first described, and it appears to the spectators to bo
standing under the table.
In the same way an attendant may be made to crawl or pass by the
spot where the bottle was placed, and he then appears to the spectators
to be passing under the table.
Another illusion which I cause by means of a modification of the
novel apparatus described is that of the sudden appearance or dis-
appearance of a performer or other object. For this purpose I make
a vertical recess open in front within which the performer stands,
but I conceal him from the spectators by a vertical mirror arranged
(in plan) at an angle of forty-five degrees with the front of the stage
(so that the reflection of the side of the recess appears to be its back),
and turning upon a vertical hinge at one of the back angles of the
recess (or two mirrors may be used, their outer edges meeting in front
when brought out). At the moment when the performer concealed
behind the mirror is to appear I cause a bright flash of light imme-
diately in front of the recess, preferably, by the ignition of a quantity
of gun cotton, and whilst the eyes of the spectators are dazzled the
performer throws back the mirror upon its hinge and is revealed. The
mirror folds against the side of the recess, which its back should be made
to imitate.