pages: latestmagicbeing00hoff.pdf, 135
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latestmagicbeing00hoff.pdf | 135 | THE RIDDLE OF THE PYRAMIDS 119 table. It is SO minute that there is no fear of its attracting attention.ยน In presenting the trick the pyramid, with its sec- tions duly threaded and placed one upon another, is brought in on a wooden board similar to an ordinary drawing-board, measuring twenty-four inches by sixteen, and like the pyramid itself, stained black. It is essential to the satisfactory working of the trick that the "base" section of the pyramid shall not shift when the thread is pulled. This is ensured by having two L shaped "stops" of thin wood glued or screwed to the board near the left hand corner nearest to the performer when in use. The trick may be introduced as follows: "I don't know whether any of you ladies and gentlemen are well up in Egyptology. I can't say I am, myself. I know a camel when I see one, but that is about as far as I have got. There is, how- ever, one point about it which has always inter- ested me very much. It is a point which has puz- zled not only the Egyptologists, but all the other ologists; namely, how the pyramids were built. They consist, as no doubt you know, of enormous masses of stone; so large that the cleverest engi- neers of our day cannot tell us how they were placed one upon another. If you can imagine the lifting of the Royal Exchange in one lump and dumping it down on the top of the Bank of Eng- 1 As a further precaution it should be painted flesh-color. |