Performing Magic on the Western Stage examines magic as a performing art and meaningful social practice. The essays in this interdisciplinary collection analyze the work of numerous western theatrical conjurers and several non-western magical performances in their historical context. Throughout, the contributors link magic to cultural arenas such as religion, finance, gender, and nationality. All of the contributors are connected to the internationally acclaimed Theory and Art of Magic program at Muhlenberg College, through which artists and scholars study the history, theory, and practice of the magical arts.

During the past decade, man's centuries-old interest in marine me teorology and oceanography has broadened. Ocean and atmosphere are now treated as coupled parts of one system; the resulting interest in air-sea interaction problems has led to a rapid growth in the sophistication of instruments and measurement techniques. This book has been designed as a reference text which describes, albng with the instruments themselves, the accumulated practical experi ence of experts engaged in field observations of air-sea interac tions. It is meant to supplement rather than replace manuals on standard routine observations or instnunentation handbooks. At the inception a textbook was planned, which would contain only well tested methods and instruments. It was quickly discovered that for the book to be useful many devices and techniques would have to be included which are still evolving rapidly. The reader is therefore cautioned to take nothing in these pages for granted. Certainly, every contributor is an expert, but while some are back ed up by generations of published work, others are pioneers. The choice of topics, of course, is debatable. The types of observa tions included are not exhaustive and topics such as marine aero sols and radio-tracers are omitted, as was the general subject of remote sensing, which was felt to be too broad and evol ving too rapidly. The guideline adopted in limiting size was maximum use fulness to 'a trained experimentalist new to the field'.

The two chapters of this book originally appeared in "Air Sea Exchange of Gases and Particles," edited by P.S. Liss and W.G.N. Slinn. We wrote them as a general introduction to the physical processes in the atmosphere and ocean which govern the transport of gases and particles in and between the two media. Our audience was to be graduate students in physical chemistry of air and sea, and research workers wishing to get started in this or a related field. It was Dr. Alan Longhurst, Director-General of the Atlantic Region, Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans, who pointed out that our introduction had a far wider audience: in fact, anyone with a scientific background who needs a basic under standing of the physics of the atmosphere and ocean. Dr. D.J. Larner of Reidel agreed, and this book is the result. Since we expended considerable effort to satisfy the demands of the physical chemists, and also discussed the explanations much with our colleagues at home, we expect the reader will find the two parts to be complementary and useful as a unified reference text. On the other hand, since it was designed as background material for a text on air-sea gas exchange and trans port, the more experienced reader will be aware that the picture presented emphasizes transport and exchange processes while it ignores others. No mention is made, for example, of weather forecasting; neither is large-scale ocean modelling considered."

Performing Magic on the Western Stage examines magic as a performing art and as a meaningful social practice, linking magic to cultural arenas such as religion, finance, gender, and nationality and profiling magicians from Robert-Houdin to Pen& Teller.