Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

This is a simple and inexpensive piece of apparatus, but it will not bear examination, and the process of reversing is a little awkward. For these reasons it is rarely employed by professional performers, who for the same purpose more generally use what is known as THE BURNING GLOBE.--This is a hollow brass globe of four to six inches in diameter, mounted on a foot of about the same height, and surmounted by a cap or lid, so that it forms, in fact, a spherical canister. A raised band, also of brass, passes horizontally round the globe; and this, which is apparently a mere ornament, is really designed to conceal the fact that the globe is divided into two separate hemispheres, revolving one upon the other. Within this external globe is an inner one, divided into two compartments, each having a separate opening, and so contrived that each of these openings in turn is made to correspond with the opening of the external globe, according as the upper hemisphere of the latter is moved round from right to left, or vice versâ. The globe is, like the canister, prepared by placing a substitute handkerchief, or piece of cambric, in one or other of the inner compartments, and then bringing the other compartment into correspondence with the external opening. A borrowed handkerchief being openly placed in the empty compartment, the performer, by merely giving a half turn to the foot of the apparatus, brings the compartment containing the substitute uppermost, the action being so little noticeable that it may be used with impunity before the very eyes of the audience.