l, filled it with rice, and stabbed it with a
table knife. Gently at first and then more firmly. To my astonishment
I found that after three or four stabs in exactly the same place, the
rice below the blade seemed to get harder, until I pressed down the
knife and found that I could not extract it with a straight pull! I
lifted the bowl of rice, and could with impunity swing it round over
my head just as one uses an Indian club. To extract the knife one has
to twist the handle slightly, when it comes out immediately. Try it
and see.

_The Coloured Sands._

Occasionally our conjuring friend breaks out from the stereotyped
programme already described, and one of the most common additions to
his programme is the "coloured sand" trick.

He has a bowl of water on the ground, and from a number of small
packets of paper he takes a corresponding number of different coloured
powders. Let us say "Green, Red, White, Orange and Blue." He pours all
these into the bowl of water, which assumes a dirty blue colour when
stirred up well.

Finally, from a box containing common sand he puts two or three
handsfull into the basin of water and thoroughly mixes up the contents
of the bowl.

He then asks his audience which coloured sand they would like
extracted from the water. The reply may be "green." "Wet or dry?" asks
the conjuror. Let us ask for "dry." He dips his hand into the water
and grasping, apparently, a handful of the mixture, draws it out
again, and squeezes out a shower of dry green sand, unmixed with any
other colour! "Now what colour will you have?" asks the magician. Let
us ask for "wet blue sand." He dips his empty hand into the water, and
draws out a handful of wet blue sand, for, when he opens his hand, a
damp ball of blue sand falls on to the ground. He can deal with the
other coloured sands in the same way, bringing out each colour
separately, and wet or dry as desired.

How on earth is it done?

The different coloured sands or powders are put into the water in a
fair and square manner. But the solution of the trick is to be found
in the way in which he puts the common sand into the water. This
common sand is kept in a box, and in it are little balls of prepared
powders or sand of colours corresponding to those already put into
the water. These balls are prepared by being mixed with a little
water, rolled into a ball, which is smeared all over with grease, and
then baked until dry. Each ball can then be i