Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

THE PILLARS OF SOLOMON, AND THE MAGIC BRADAWL.--There is a very old-fashioned apparatus, sometimes called the Pillars of Solomon, for apparently uniting a piece of cut string. It consists of two slips of wood, each about four inches in length by five-eighths of an inch square, laid side by side. At about an inch from one end of each, a transverse hole is bored, and through this, passing through both slips, a string is passed, and may be drawn backwards and forwards from side to side. (See Fig. 159.) The apparatus having been shown in this condition, the performer passes a knife between the two slips, thus apparently dividing the string; but the string is notwithstanding still drawn backward and forwards through the holes, as sound as ever. The secret lies in the fact that the string does not, in reality, go straight through the two slips of wood from side to side. A glance at Fig. 160 will enlighten the reader as to its real course. Instead of passing straight through from a to d, as it appears to do when the two pillars are laid side by side (which is the condition in which they are first exhibited to the spectators), it passes down the length of the first pillar from a to b, out at b, and into the second pillar at c, whence it passes upwards, and emerges at d. The passing of the knife between the two points a and d does not therefore affect the string in the least.