Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1894 — A NEW STAGE ILLUSION. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A NEW STAGE ILLUSION.

A Simple and Ingenious Way ol Presenting an Aerial Lady With No Visible Means of Support, New York Sun. Visitors to the big Midwinter Fair in San Francisco have been able recently to enjoy among the Midway HttractionT,“a“very effective illusion? accomplished by the use of a giant mirror set at an angle upon the theater stage. The illusion is called “The Aerial Lady.” When the curtain rises a comely young woman appears to float into view suddenly from the back of the stage and remains poised in mid-air, floating from side to side as if resting before the surface of a lake. After a few moments her arms and legs go through a number of complicated but graceful gyrations, and her body assumes a variety of postures. She dances, and finally turns

a complete somersault in mid-air. The somersault is executed slowly, and puzzles the spectator, for it is readily seen that the body of the performer has no support upon which to turn. None of the spectators know that what he is looking at is not the agile woman athlete, but a reflection of her in the giant mirror, which is set at an angle of nearly forty-five degrees over an open pit built in the stage, at the bottom of which the performer lies on her back upon a circular revolving platform. The platform is made of thick plate glass and revolving metal casters. The platform fits into an opening in the side of the pit, and as it is slid through the opening into place, the illusion is produced of the woman coming into the view of the audience suddenly, and apparently floating upon air in defiance of all her natural laws. As the woman lies stretched on her back her image is reflected upon the mirror as if she were standing upright, and the positions are changed by simply revolving the glass platform one way or the other. The mysterious somersault illusion is effected by turning the mirror completely around.