Page:The American Boy's Handy Book edition 1.djvu/405

Often one little figure will stand on his head, and another, fixing himself by one hand, hold his tiny form upright in a most comical manner; sometimes they will form themselves into long strings and go through all manner of queer and seemingly intelligent movements. Image missingFig. 237. The same result can be produced by rubbing a piece of gutta-percha smartly upon a piece of woollen cloth, and then holding it over the paper puppets. When one of those intensely cold waves from the North strikes the country and frightens the mercury in the thermometers, until it retreats down to the very bottom of its glass tube, electricity is often so easily generated that I have known persons to light a gas-jet by simply applying the ends of their fingers to the burners. A certain professor, well known to the public, was so startled at seeing the gas blaze up upon touching the burner with his finger, that he dropped into a sitting posture upon the floor, and there, with his feet spread apart, and his eyes and mouth open, he presented a perfect picture of astonishment and wonder.