the trick from a witness to whom he had spoken. It was suggested that the position of the Sun was crucial to the trick: The jugglers brought a coil of what appeared to be a large rope. As they uncoiled it and held it up it became stiff ; it was evidently jointed bamboo with the joints made to lock. It was covered to look like a rope, and it formed a pole about thirty feet long. A diminutive boy, not much larger than an Indian monkey, climbed up to the top of the pole and was out of sight of the audience unless they bent forward and looked beneath the awning, when the sun shone in their eyes and blinded them. As soon as the boy was at the top of the pole the jugglers made a great shouting, declaring he had vanished. He quickly slid down the pole and fell on the ground behind the juggler who held the rope. Another juggler threw a cloth over the boy and pretended that he was dead. After considerable tom-tomming and incantation the boy began to move, and was eventually restored to life. In 1935, Harry Price suggested that a strong sun and jointed rope could explain the trick. He translated an article by the German magician Erik Jan Hanussen who claimed to have observed the secret to the trick in a village near Babylon. According to Hanussen the spectators were positioned in front of a blazing sun and the "rope" was actually made from the vertebrae of a sheep covered with sailing cord that was twisted into a solid pole. A "smoke producing preparation", combined with the blinding sun, gave the illusion of disappearance for the boy. Will Goldston, who was mostly skeptical, wrote that a possible explanation for the illusion of the suspended rope may have been a bamboo rod, covered with rope. Others such as P. C. Sorcar have suggested that a long horizontal thread or wire was used to support the rope. Joseph Dunninger has revealed methods of how the suspended rope could be performed by camera trickery. Analyzing old eyewitness reports, Jim McKeague explained how poor, itinerant conjuring troupes could have performed the trick using known magical techniques. If a ball of cord is thrown upwards, one end being retained in the hand, the ball rapidly decreases in size as it rises. As it unwinds completely