Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

THE BALL WHICH CHANGES TO A ROSE.--This is little more than an enlarged edition of the apparatus just described, the ball in Morison’s pill-box being generally of about an inch and a half in diameter, while in the present case the ball is nearly double that size. (See Fig. 131.) The only other difference is the addition of a short pin, about a sixteenth of an inch in length, projecting from the bottom of the cup, and fitting into a corresponding hole in the lower shell. The addition of this pin enables the performer, after having pressed the stud at top, and thus caused the ball to appear in the previously empty box, to again cause its disappearance. This is effected by opening the box with a slight lateral pressure, when the pin acts as a stop or check to hold back the lower shell; and the shells which are in this instance made to fit rather more loosely together, are thus forced to separate again, the lower being left in the cup and the upper in the lid, as before.