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Dematerializing Thirty Coins

The following experiment the author considers to be one of the prettiest in the whole range of coin conjuring. The effect is as follows:
Twenty-five to thirty half-dollars are borrowed and marked by spectators for identity. The coins are now placed in an examined glass tube (a blown cylinder open at one end) just large enough to receive them. The latter is now corked and sealed by one of the audience, and is then held by him under cover of a handkerchief. The spectator holding the cylinder suddenly becomes aware of the fact that the same is getting lighter and lighter, and upon removing the handkerchief the coins are found to have entirely evaporated from same, and may be produced from his pocket or elsewhere at the option of the performer. The tube and cork remain intact. No confederates, etc.
To bring about the above effect you must be provided with two blown glass tubes exactly alike in appearance. One of them, however, has a minute hole in the bottom, and is filled with quicksilver and corked up tightly. The cork also has a minute hole drilled through it lengthwise. When the borrowed coins have been placed in the examined tube the same is adroitly exchanged for the duplicate (the quicksilver through the glass giving exactly the same appearance as the coins), and it is this one that is sealed by audience. Now, under cover of the handkerchief, the performer places over the bottom of the cylinder the mouth of a rubber tube, at the other end of which (in your profonde) is a bag made of the same material Now upon slightly scratching the wax from over the hole in the cork, the air rushes in and forces the quicksilver gradually out of the tube, thereby making it lighter by degrees. The rubber tube is now secretly replaced in the pocket and the cylinder handed for inspection, during which the performer has ample time to get the coins out of the original glass tube (now in pocket), palm them and reproduce them where he pleases.
The above trick affords considerable scope for comedy, especially when the tube held by spectator becomes lighter, the effect appearing to him to be that the coins are really melting. It is not at all a difficult feat to accomplish and if presented in a pleasing manner produces a beautiful effect.