Heat the end of a piece of No. 2 tube in the blowpipe flame until it is melted and very hot. Now touch the end of another piece of glass to the melted glass, remove from the flame, and quickly pull the two pieces apart as far as you can (Fig. 28). Do you find that you have pulled part of the melted glass out into a very fine glass spider-web?

Repeat, but ask a friend to touch the second piece of glass to the first and run away as fast as he can.

Do you get a much finer spider-web?

Is the glass spider-web fairly strong and very flexible?

Experiment 16. The Ancient Spider Trick

Attach an imitation spider — or the dead body of a real spider — to the end of the glass spider-web and surprise your friends, as shown in Fig. 29. The glass spider-web is much less visible than a thread for this purpose.