To furnish the ingenious youth with the means of relieving the tediousness of a long winter’s or a wet summer’s evening,—to enable him to provide for a party of juvenile friends, instructive as well as recreative entertainment, without having recourse to any of the vulgar modes of killing time,—to qualify the hero of his little circle to divert and astonish his friends, and, at the same time, to improve himself, are the principal objects of the following little Work.

The boy whose wonder and curiosity have been excited by the experiments of the scientific lecturer, or the illusions of the ventriloquist, will here find many of these mysteries unveiled, and plain directions for performing them, divested, as far as possible, of scientific or technical language. Many of the descriptions are strictly original, and now, for the first time, appear in print; and especial care has been taken to introduce only such Experiments as are adapted for performance at the parlour or drawing-room table, or fire-side, and such as are practicable without expensive chemical or mechanical apparatus, and require no implements beyond those which any ingenious youth may readily furnish from his own resources, or at a trifling expense.

Another object of these pages is to inform, without being dryly scientific,—by imparting interesting facts, to stimulate the young experimentalist to inquire into the laws that regulate them,—by aiding him to acquire dexterity of practice, to smooth the road to the development of principles,—and, above all, to enable him to escape an imputation which every boy of spirit would consider the depth of disgrace,—that of being “No Conjuror!”

[viii]
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