Transcriber's Notes:
Underscores "_" before and after a word or phrase indicate _italics_
in the original text.
Equal signs "=" before and after a word or phrase indicate =bold=
in the original text.
Carat symbol "^" designates a superscript.
Small capitals have been converted to SOLID capitals.
Illustrations have been moved so they do not break up paragraphs.
Old or antiquated spellings have been preserved.
Typographical errors have been silently corrected but other variations
in spelling and punctuation remain unaltered.
[Illustration]
PRIVATELY PRINTED OPUSCULA.
_ISSUED TO MEMBERS OF THE SETTE
OF ODD VOLUMES_.
No. XXIX.
AUTOMATA OLD AND NEW.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: [_See page 54_.]
Automata Old and New
BY
CONRAD WILLIAM COOKE, M.INST.E.E.
_Mechanick_ to the Sette of
Odd Volumes
[Illustration]
_Delivered at a Meeting of the Sette held at
Limmer’s Hotel, on Friday,
November 6th_, 1891
[Illustration]
LONDON
IMPRINTED AT THE CHISWICK PRESS
MDCCCXCIII
TO THEIR ODDSHIPS
CHARLES HOLME, F.L.S.
(_Pilgrim_),
PRESIDENT, 1890.
GEORGE CHARLES HAITÉ, R.B.A., F.L.S.
(_Art Critic_),
PRESIDENT, 1891.
AND
WILLIAM MURRELL, M.D.
(_Leech_),
PRESIDENT, 1892.
DURING WHOSE YEARS OF OFFICE
THE FOLLOWING NOTES ON
AUTOMATA
WERE RESPECTIVELY
PREPARED, PRESENTED AND PRINTED,
THIS LITTLE BOOK
IS DEDICATED BY
CONRAD W. COOKE,
_Mechanick to ye Sette of Odd Volumes_.
[Illustration]
_This edition is limited to 255 copies, and
is imprinted for private circulation only._
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
AUTOMATA OLD AND NEW.
May it please your Oddship, Brethren and Guests of Y^e Sette of Odd
Volumes. The origin of this little paper is very simple. Just eleven
months ago we had the delight of listening to the very interesting and
instructive communication upon the work of that wonderful mechanical
genius, electrician, and _prestidigitateur_, Robert-Houdin, presented
to us by my very good friend, our revered Seer, Brother Manning. With
the object of contributing something to the discussion which followed
that paper, I began to make a few notes upon Automata, with which
subject the name of Robert-Houdin must for ever be associated; I soon
found, however, that the subject was so comprehensive and went back
into such remote periods of antiquity, that to do it even the most
scanty justice would require a paper devoted to itself alone; and, as
our esteemed Pilgrim and Past-President, Brother Holme, was at that
time pressing me for a paper with that persistency and importunity
which characterized his presidentship and gave it so much of its
success, I, as a loyal Odd Volume, felt bound to obey the mandate of
his Oddship; and, holding the honourable office of _Mechanick_ to the
Sette, I have chosen “Automata Old and New” for the subject of this
communication.
The word Automaton would in its strictest and most comprehensive sense
include all apparently self-moving machines or devices which contain
within themselves their own motive power, and in this sense such
machines as clocks and watches, and even locomotives and steamships
might be included. I shall, however, throughout this paper limit
myself to the more restricted and more ordinarily accepted meaning of
the term, namely, such self-moving machines as are made either in the
forms of men or of animals, or by which animal motions and functions
are more or less imitated.
As mechanics, next to mathematics and astronomy, is the most ancient
of sciences, and as the scientific knowledge of the ancients was ever
shrouded in mystery to conceal it from the eyes of the vulgar, and to
confer upon the initiated power and profit by working on the credulity
of the ignorant, it was but only to be expected that mechanical
science should be early applied in the ancient mysteries by which the
philosophers and the priests of antiquity maintained so much of their
supremacy.
One of the very earliest allusions to mysterious self-moving machines
is to be found in the eighteenth book of the “Iliad,” wherein we are
told of Vulcan that
“Full twenty tripods for his hall he fram’d,
That, placed on living wheels of massy gold
(Wondrous to tell) instinct with spirit roll’d
From place to place, around the bless’d abodes,
Self-mov’d, obedient to the beck of gods.”[1]
Several others of the ancient poets besides Homer have sung about
the wonderful mechanical devices of Vulcan, among which were golden
statues, the semblances of living maids, which not only appeared to be
endued with life, but which walked by his side and bore him up as he
walked. Aristotle also refers to self-moving tripods, and Philostratus
states that Appolonius of Tyana saw similar pieces of mechanism among
the Brahmins of India; but this must have been nearly four hundred
years after Aristotle wrote, and some nine hundred years after the time
of Homer.
Then again we hear of Dædalus making self-moving statues, small figures
of the gods, of which Plato in his “Menos” says that unless they were
fastened they would of themselves run away, and he puts this into the
mouth of Socrates, who uses it as a figure to illustrate the importance
of not only acquiring but of holding fast scientific truth that it may
not fly away from us. Aristotle in referring to these statues affirms
that Dædalus accomplished his object by putting into them quicksilver,
but the learned mechanician Bishop Wilkins points out that “this would
have been too grosse a way for so excellent an artificer; it is more
likely that he did it with wheels and weights.”[2] We are moreover told
by Macrobius[3] that in the temple of Hieropolis at Antium there were
moving statues.
A contemporary of Plato and, it is said, his master, was Archytas
of Tarentum, the celebrated Pythagorean philosopher, mathematician,
cosmographer, and mechanician, to whom is accredited the invention
of the screw and of the crane. Archytas is said to have constructed
of wood a pigeon that could fly about, but which could not rise again
after it had settled; and Aulus Gellius (who lived in the reigns of
Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius), tells us in
his “Noctes Atticæ,” that “many men of eminence among the Greeks, and
Favonius, the philosopher, a most vigilant searcher into antiquity,
have in a most positive manner assured us that the model of a pigeon,
formed in wood by Archytas, was so contrived as by a certain mechanical
art and power to fly; so nicely was it balanced by weights and put
in motion by hidden and inclosed air. In a matter so very improbable
we may be allowed to add the words of Favonius himself: ‘Archytas of
Tarentum, being both a philosopher and skilled in mechanics, made a
wooden pigeon which had it ever settled would not have risen again till
now.’”[4] And I am bound to admit that in this point I agree with him.
From the above description it would appear that a still greater
invention than a flying automaton was made by Archytas, for in an
apparatus “_so nicely balanced by weights and put in motion by hidden
and inclosed air_,” we have a very fair forecast of the modern aërostat
or balloon, filled with gas and balanced by ballast. There cannot be
any doubt but that the accounts of these very early machines (if such
ever existed at all), have been greatly exaggerated during the process
of being handed down through long ages of ignorance and credulity; but
we may now enter upon surer ground although still very ancient. In the
reign of Ptolemy Euergetes II. (Ptolemy VII.), about 150 years B.C.,
there lived at Alexandria that great genius of mechanical science,
Hero; and his remarkable book “Spiritalia,” of which I am able to show
you several copies to-night, is itself a great storehouse of ingenuity
in the construction of automata of very various forms and principles.
This remarkable man was, if not the inventor, the first describer
of the siphon in both its typical forms, the syringe, the well-known
portable shower-bath, the clack valve, the fire engine, even with that
mechanical refinement, an air vessel for insuring a continuous stream,
a self-trimming lamp, the steam blowpipe, the pneumatic fountain
called after his name, a steam engine, and last if not least, the
penny-in-the-slot automatic machine for obtaining a drink, or, may be,
a charge of scent.
I propose now to show you on the screen some photographic reproductions
of pages in his book, some taken from the Latin edition of Commandinus,
published at Urbino in 1575, and some from the Italian edition of
Alessandro Georgi, printed at the same place in 1592, some from the
fine edition of Aleotti, published in 1589, and others from the
Amsterdam version of 1680, all of which editions I am able to show you.
I have, moreover, copied some from manuscripts in the British Museum,
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of which there are four in
the National Library, _i.e._, two in the Harley Collection and two
among the Burney manuscripts.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.]
The first illustration I shall show you from Hero’s work is a bird
which, by means of a stream of water, is caused to pipe or sing. This
little automaton consists of a pedestal (A B C D) (Fig. 1), which is in
reality a water-tight tank fitted with a funnel (E), the stem of which
reaches nearly to the bottom; to the right of this there is a little
bush on which sits a bird, and a tube (G H) leads up from the roof of
the tank and terminates in a little whistle, the end of which dips into
a cup (L) containing water. When water is poured into the funnel, the
air in the tank is driven out through the tube and whistle (G H) and,
bubbling through the water, sounds as if the bird were singing. Thus
the well-known bubbling bird-whistle dates back to a century and a half
before the Christian era or earlier.
The next illustration (Fig. 2) shows a more elaborate arrangement, in
which there are four small birds being watched by an owl; the moment
the owl’s back is turned the birds begin to sing, but cease as soon as
he turns towards them. In this apparatus the birds are made to sing
in precisely the same way as in the last illustration, namely, by the
displacement by water of the air in the tank, but as soon as the level
of the water in the tank reaches the top of a concentric siphon (F G)
the water is discharged into a bucket, the birds cease to sing, and
the bucket, owing to its increased weight, lifts the counterbalance
weight (Z), and in doing so turns the spindle (P M) which supports the
owl (R S). When the bucket is full its contents are discharged by a
small siphon within it and it is drawn up by the weight (Z) the owl
turns its back to the birds, and the cycle of operations is repeated.
[Illustration: Fig. 2.]
In the next figure a still more elaborate effect is produced. Here is a
pedestal upon which are four little bushes each having a bird sitting
in its branches; when water is allowed to flow into the funnel the
first bird begins to whistle, and after a few minutes leaves off, when
the next bird begins, and when he has finished the third bird sings,
after a little time the fourth takes up the song, and when he has
finished the first begins again, and so on as long as water is flowing
into the funnel. These effects are produced in the simplest possible
manner, by a combination of as many superposed tanks as there are birds
to sing, the one emptying into the other by siphons. The illustration
explains itself.
[Illustration: Fig. 3.]
In the next device (Fig. 4) we have a bird whose singing is
_intermittent_. In this case the water flows into a little cup which
topples over the moment it is full, emptying itself into the funnel and
immediately righting itself (being loaded at its bottom), the sound is
produced by the displaced air escaping through a whistle in the manner
already described.
[Illustration: Fig. 4.]
[Illustration: Fig. 5.]
We now come to a different class, in which heat is employed for
obtaining an increase of air pressure whereby certain automatic
actions are produced. Here we have a priest and priestess officiating
at an altar; and the effect of lighting the fire thereon is to cause
the two figures to pour libations onto the sacrifice. In this case
the altar consists of an air-tight metallic box in communication,
by means of a central tube, with a larger box forming the pedestal.
Into this lower reservoir is poured the wine or other liquid through
the hole marked M. When the fire is lighted the air in the altar is
expanded, and pressing on the surface of the liquid in the pedestal,
forces some of it through the tubes which pass through the body and
down the right arm of each figure. In the next view (Fig. 6) we see
how this principle was employed by Hero for the opening of the doors
of a temple, the tradition being that when a sacrifice was offered on
her altar the goddess Isis showed her invisible presence by throwing
open the doors of her sanctuary. In this case the altar consists of an
air-tight metallic box communicating by means of a tube (F G) with a
spherical vessel (H) partly filled with water. When the altar becomes
hot the contained air is expanded, thereby increasing the pressure on
the surface of the water, some of which is therefore forced through
the bent tube (L) into the bucket (M), which descends by its increased
weight, thereby unwinding the cords from the two spindles that perform
the function of hinges to the temple doors, at the same time winding
up the counterweight (R) on the left. When the fire goes out the
altar cools, assuming its ordinary atmospheric pressure, and the water
in the bucket is forced back into the vessel (H), and the weight
counterbalancing the empty bucket, closes again the doors.
[Illustration: Fig. 6.]
Like many other geniuses who have lived before their time, Hero had his
plagiarists, his devices having been adopted and described by later
writers without one word of acknowledgment as to their authorship. From
the middle to the end of the seventeenth century several books appeared
which to a great extent were simply bad and erroneous copies of Hero’s
inventions, and not even intelligently copied. Here for instance (Fig.
7) is a _facsimile_ of an illustration in a curious old book, “The
Mysteries of Nature and Art,” by John Bate, published in 1635; this
is poor Bate’s attempt to steal Hero’s device for the temple doors,
showing an altogether impossible scheme. In the first place the doors
could not open at all, for the ropes are so coiled as to neutralize
each other’s action, and, secondly, the counterweight to the right has
its cord simply looped round the spindle and therefore is absolutely
useless; the accompanying description is even more absurd, for it
explains the action of the apparatus as follows: “The fier on the Altar
will cause the water to distill out of the Ball into the Bucket, which
when (by reason of the water) it is become heavier than the waight, it
will draw it up and so open the sayd gates or little doores.”
[Illustration: Fig. 7.]
Again, in one of Hero’s illustrations a revolving disc carrying little
figures was made to rotate upon the reaction principle of his own
Æolipile, or steam engine. By a little bit of bad perspective the ends
of the cross tubes were shown as turning alternately up and down, and
Bate not only repeats this error, but goes out of his way to point out
that “in the middest” there must be “a hollow pipe spreading itself
into foure severall branches at the bottom: _the ends of two of the
branches must turn up and the ends of two must turn down_,” thus making
any rotative action impossible.
But Bate was not the only pirate of Hero’s work; a few years after Bate
had written, that is, in 1659, there appeared another curious book by
Isaak de Caus, upon Water Works,[5] and in that book we find our old
friend the owl keeping the small birds in order, the only difference
being that this is a more indulgent owl, or perhaps he is a teacher of
singing, for in this case the birds sing while he is looking at them
and cease the moment he turns his back.
[Illustration: Fig. 8.]
Another pretty conceit of Hero’s is shown in Fig. 8, in which there is
a bird which not only makes a noise but at certain times will drink any
liquid which is presented to it. The flow of water being intermittent,
the cistern forming the pedestal is alternately filled and emptied.
While it is being filled the air escapes through a whistle and causes
the bird to sing, and when it is being emptied, by means of a siphon,
a partial vacuum is produced and liquid presented to it is drawn up
through the beak.
[Illustration: Fig. 9.]
The next automaton from Hero is very ingenious and interesting, because
it combines hydraulic, pneumatic, and mechanical actions. Here (Fig.
9) is a figure of Hercules armed with a bow and arrow; there is also
a dragon under an apple tree, from which an apple has fallen to the
ground. Upon the apple being lifted, Hercules discharges the arrow
at the dragon, which begins to hiss and continues to do so for some
minutes. In this apparatus there is a double tank having a connection
by a valve (H), which is attached by a cord to the apple (K), another
cord, passing over a pulley, connects the apple with a trigger in
the right hand of Hercules. Upon lifting the apple the trigger is
released, and at the same time the valve is opened, allowing the water
in the upper tank to flow into the lower, by which means air is forced
through a tube (Z) into the dragon’s mouth, producing a hissing sound,
and this will continue until the upper tank is empty. Here (Fig. 10) is
Bate’s version of the same device, but very inferior to that from which
it was taken.
[Illustration: Fig. 10.]
The next photograph is taken from another work of Hero’s, “_Quatro
theoremi aggiunti a gli artifitiosi spiriti_,” a copy of which I have
here (Fig. 11), and which was printed at Ferrara in 1589.
[Illustration: Fig. 11.]
This figure illustrates a very elaborate automaton, representing one
of Vulcan’s workshops in which you will see a smith forging a piece of
iron, and assisted by three hammermen. The smith first puts his iron
in the fire and then lays it on the anvil when the hammermen begin
to hammer it; then they leave off, and the smith turns round again
to the fire. All these effects are produced by the machinery below
the floor, and shown in the illustration. A shaft (A B) is driven by
means of a water-wheel on the right, and on this shaft are projections
or cambs which, by striking the ends of three levers (T, X, and V),
pull the chains by which the arms of the hammermen are lifted. While
this is going on the bucket (marked 20) is slowly filling, and when
a sufficient weight of water has accumulated in it, it lifts the
counterweight (17), and, in doing so, rotates the vertical shaft to
which the figure of the smith is attached, turning him round to the
fire, and at the same time, by swinging round the conduit pipe (H I),
cuts off the water from the wheel, and the hammermen cease to work
until the smith is again ready for them. I think you will agree with me
that this machine offers very fair evidence of the mechanical ingenuity
of a man who flourished more than 2,000 years ago.
The last automaton of Hero to which I shall refer is perhaps the most
ingenious of all, and it is one that those who were present when
Brother Manning gave us his discourse on Robert-Houdin have already
seen, I mean the little figure whose head cannot be severed from his
body no matter how many times a knife be passed through his neck.
Thanks to the kindness of my good friend I can show you one of these
beautiful figures presented to me by him, and it will, I think, be
of interest to him and to you to know that this device was invented
nearly 2,000 years before Robert-Houdin was born, and a description
of it with accompanying figures may be seen to-day in the British
Museum in a Greek manuscript of the fifteenth century, which is a copy
of Hero’s Σπειριταλια, and I now throw on the screen a carefully made
facsimile (Fig. 12) of the figure given in that manuscript (which is
known as No. 5605 of the Harleian Collection).
[Illustration:-HARLEIAN MANUSCRIPT-(FIFTEENTH CENTURY)-Fig. 12.]
The head of this figure, which is otherwise separate from it, is
attached to it by a peculiar shaped wheel pivotted between the
shoulders of the body. This wheel may be described as a circular
disc having an expanded rim so that a section taken through a radius
would be of the form of the letter =T=, out of this wheel three
nearly semicircular gaps are cut, each occupying sixty degrees of the
circumference, and therefore leaving three portions of the rim, each
also of sixty degrees. The neck attached to the head is fitted with a
hollow =T= shaped circular groove into which the =T= ended arms of
the wheel pass in succession as the wheel is rotated. As the groove in
the head occupies nearly sixty degrees it follows that as the wheel
is rotated the rim of one arm can never leave the groove before the
rim of the following arm has entered it, and so the head is attached
to the body in every position of the wheel. When the knife is passed
between the head and the body it strikes against one of the spokes of
the wheel, moving it forward and pushing one of the arms out of the
groove in the head, while, at the same time, another, following behind
the knife, takes its place, and thus the head can never be detached
from the body. Such an automaton is the little negro which I hold
in my hand, for which I am indebted to the fraternal generosity of
Brother Manning. Hero’s description, however, carries the ingenuity of
the device considerably farther, for in his automaton, not only is it
impossible to sever the head from the body by passing a knife through
the neck, but the figure can actually drink both before and after the
operation. The illustration on the screen (Fig. 13) is a sort of modern
restoration of the Harley drawing, showing the disposition of the
various parts of the mechanism. (A) represents the wheel by which the
head is held on to the body, and it will be noticed that a tube D D
leads from the mouth to the neck and another, E, from the neck through
the body; these two tubes, marked respectively D D and E, are connected
by the sliding tube F, which is attached to the two racks F and G,
into which are geared the two toothed wheels B and C. When the knife
is passed from P to O it first rotates the holding-on wheel A, and then
strikes against the radial face of the wheel C, turning it through
a small arc, thereby moving the racks, and, sliding the connecting
tube F out of D, allowing the knife to pass, which next strikes the
radial face of the wheel B, and, by turning it, restores the sliding
connecting tube F into D, and thus recompletes the connection. The
sucking-up the liquid being accomplished in a similar manner to that in
the drinking bird already described.[6]
[Illustration: Fig. 13.]
I have now done with Hero of Alexandria, but, before passing to another
period, I cannot resist showing you an invention of his which although
not an automaton is too interesting in the light of modern civilization
to omit. This (Fig. 14) is Hero’s automatic penny-in-the-slot machine
for giving a drink in exchange for a coin. If a “coin of five
drachmas” be dropped into the slot it falls on a little plate at the
end of a lever thereby opening a valve and allowing the liquid to
escape through the nozzle.
[Illustration: Fig. 14.]
It is more than probable that Hero was not himself the inventor of all
the devices he describes, it is possible that many are due to Ctesibius
whose pupil he was, and it is clear, from his own writings, that he
was acquainted with the writings of Philo and of Archimedes. He was,
however, the first to _describe_ these inventions, and therefore it is
only fair, in the absence of other evidence, to give him the credit.
[Illustration: Fig. 15.]
There can be no doubt that puppets or dolls are of great antiquity;
they were common with the ancient Egyptians, and here (Fig. 15) is an
illustration of a doll from Thebes which is now in the British Museum,
and you will notice that the head is covered with holes which served
for the insertion of strings of beads to represent hair. Puppets were
also in use with the Greeks, and afterwards found their way to Rome,
and it is an interesting fact that, about three years ago, while the
ground was being excavated for the foundations of the new Palais de
Justice at Rome, at a spot not far from the Vatican, a stone coffin
was discovered containing the skeleton of a young girl of about
fifteen years of age, who had teeth of great beauty, and in her arms
was a beautifully modelled wooden doll with jointed limbs which was
dressed in a rich material. The interment had taken place in the time
of Pliny, who refers to the child, and mentions that she was engaged
to be married, a statement which is supported by the fact that on one
of the fingers is a doubly-linked gold ring, besides other ornaments.
The coffin, with its contents as they were found, is now in the museum
in the Capitol and it is, I believe, the only instance of an ancient
doll having been found in Rome, although moving puppets or marionettes
were known in very ancient times, and are referred to by Xenophon,
Aristotle, Horace, Antoninus, Galen, and Aulus Gellius.
The next figure is an illustration of what I suppose must be the very
earliest moving doll in existence to-day; it is now in the Museum
van Oudheden at Leyden, and is a toy which belonged to a child of
ancient Egypt; I have constructed a model of it by which you will
see that it is worked by pulling a thread; and here I must make a
passing reference to the notorious phallic figures which were carried
in procession during the festivals of Osiris and in the Dionysia
of Bacchus. We are told by Lucian[7] that “Among the several sorts
of Phalloi which the Greeks set up in honour of Bacchus there were
figures of dwarfs with moving parts actuated by strings, which were
called ‘Νευροσπαστα’.” In so eminently proper a community as We are
in Ye Sette of Odd Volumes, I am unable to describe these figures in
detail, or to exhibit them in action, but those who are _curious_ as
well as _odd_ will find abundant evidence of them in the writings
of Herodotus, of Lucian, of Pausanias, of Athenæus, of Plutarch, of
Gyraldus, and of several other writers.
[Illustration: Fig. 16.]
The earliest forms of moving puppets were set in motion by strings
pulled by hand which were afterwards supplanted by cylinders turned by
a winch, and the transition from that arrangement to the use of weights
and springs was inevitable and was only a question of time.
From the time of Hero I have found nothing worth recording for nearly
a thousand years, until the time of Charlemagne, to which monarch was
presented by the Kalif Haroun al Raschid a most elaborate water clock.
In front of the dial, and corresponding to the hours, were twelve
little doors, and the time was shown by these doors opening one after
another, each releasing a little brass ball which fell upon a small
bell; after all the hours had struck, that is, at noon, another door
opened, twelve little knights rode out, and, after careering round
the dial, they closed the doors and retired. The eminent mechanician
Gerbert who occupied the papal chair in A.D. 1000, reigning under the
name of Silvester II., is said to have constructed a speaking head
of brass, and was in consequence arrested for practising magic, and
Albertus Magnus, who flourished in the thirteenth century, spent,
according to his own account, thirty years in the construction of
an automaton of clay which not only spoke but walked and answered
questions and solved problems submitted to it. It is recorded that his
pupil, the celebrated St. Thomas Aquinas was so horrified when he saw
and heard this figure that (believing it to be the work of his Satanic
Majesty), he broke it into pieces, when Albertus cried aloud: “Sic
periit opus triginta annorum.” I deeply regret this mischievous act of
St. Thomas Aquinas, because it renders it impossible for me to show it
to the Brethren and our guests this evening. Roger Bacon also is said
to have made a similar automaton.
Records of speaking androides or talking heads reach us from very
early times. At Lesbos there was a head of Orpheus which delivered
oracles and predicted to Cyrus his violent death, and we have it on
the authority of Philostratus that the head was so celebrated for its
oracular utterances, among both the Greeks and the Persians that even
Apollo became jealous of its fame.
Then again the mighty Odin had among his mystical possessions a
speaking head, believed to be that of Minos, which Odin preserved by
encasing it in solid gold. He is said to have consulted it on all
occasions, and its utterances were regarded as oracles.
Mention might here be made of the colossal figure of Amunoph III. on
the plain of Thebes, and which is commonly known as the “vocal Memnon,”
of which a photograph is now before you; it is the more eastern of the
two Colossi, and, when the first rays of the morning sun fell on it,
it emitted a sound which has been described as similar to that of the
snapping of a harp string, but it has been silent since the time of
Severus. It is a seated figure nearly sixty feet in height, and is in
no sense an automaton, but I mention it here because it was believed to
utter sentences which the ancient priests of Egypt alone, for the very
best of reasons, knew how to interpret.
In more modern times we hear of the eminent Dr. Wilkins, Bishop of
Chester (who married the sister of Oliver Cromwell, and who may be
regarded as the founder of the Royal Society), experimenting upon
the transmission of sound; and Evelyn, in his “Diary,” writing on
the 13th of July, 1654, says, “We all dined at that most obliging
and universally curious Dr. Wilkins’s, at Wadham College. He had
contrived a hollow statue, which gave a voice and uttered words”; and
in his “Mathematicall Magick,” (a copy of which I have here) which
was published in 1648, Wilkins refers to the speaking figures of the
ancients.
A contemporary of Wilkins was the celebrated Edward Somerset, Marquis
of Worcester, who in his “Century of Inventions” gives as his 88th
device: “How to make a Brazen or Stone-head in the midst of a great
Field or Garden, so artificial and natural that though a man speak
never so softly, and even whispers into the eare thereof, it will
presently open its mouth, and resolve the Question in French, Latine,
Welsh, Irish or English, in good terms uttering it out of his mouth,
and then shut it untill the next Question be asked.”—But, unhappily, he
does not tell us how it may be done.
The great period for the construction of automata began at the close
of the fourteenth century, and reached its climax at the end of the
seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century. One of the
earliest mechanicians who devoted his skill to automata was Johann
Müller, of Königsberg, commonly known as Regiomontanus. This eminent
mathematician and astronomer made of iron a fly which is said to have
left his hand and, after flying to each of the guests in the room,
returned to its master, alighting on his hand. Müller made also a still
more wonderful machine; this was an artificial eagle which, on the
authority of Peter Ramus, flew to meet the Emperor Maximilian on his
entry into Nuremberg on the 7th of June, 1470. After soaring aloft in
the air, Ramus informs us, the eagle met the emperor at some distance
from the city, then returned and perched upon the city gate where it
awaited the emperor’s approach. On his arrival the bird stretched out
its wings and saluted him by bowing.
It is a remarkable fact that not one of Müller’s contemporaries, who
often refer to this learned man and to his great accomplishments,
makes any reference to these pieces of mechanism, and Peter Ramus
was not born until forty-five years after, but they are referred to
by Baptista Porta, Gassendi, Lana, and Bishop Wilkins, who, however,
differ considerably in their dates. Strada, in his “De Bello Belgico,”
tells us that the Emperor Charles V., after his abdication in 1556,
took a most keen interest in automata of various kinds, and he employed
a very skilful artist, Janellus Turrianus, of Cremona, to construct
them for him. This mechanic made figures of horsemen which marched
along the table, played upon flutes and drums, and entered into combat
with one another, and he exhibited wooden birds which flew up to their
nests (they must, I think, have been _wood pigeons_). This Janellus
Turrianus was evidently a very wonderful man, for he made a corn-mill
so small that it could be concealed in a glove, and yet could grind in
a day as much corn as would supply eight men with food. I never saw
this machine myself, and I cannot help thinking that either the glove
must have been rather large or the appetites of the men must have been
rather small. Apart, however, from the exaggeration of the genius
of this man, he was undoubtedly a most skilful mechanician, for he
repaired and considerably improved a most complex clock constructed
by Wilhelm Zelandin for the city of Padua, in which moving figures and
astronomical phenomena were represented.
The addition to clocks of automata set in motion by the train was a
very favourite occupation of the horologists of the sixteenth century.
Of these clocks perhaps the most celebrated was that at Strasburg,
which was constructed by Conrad Dasypodius. This clock was finished in
the year 1573. Apart from its interesting representations of various
celestial phenomena, it is remarkable for the number of moving figures
which embellish it, and which perform various functions; above the dial
the four ages of man are represented by symbolical figures; one passes
every quarter of an hour, marking the quarter by striking on a bell;
the first quarter is struck by a child with an apple, the second by a
youth with an arrow, the third by a man with his staff, and the fourth
by an old man with his crutch. After these follows the figure of Death,
who, after sounding the hour on a large bell, is expelled by a figure
representing Christ, while two small angels are set into motion, the
one striking a bell with a sceptre, while the other turns over an
hour-glass at the expiration of an hour. There are, besides, various
animals, and among them a cock, which flaps its wings and crows just
before the clock strikes the hour.
The great clock at Lyons, the work of Lippius of Basle, is hardly
less interesting. Besides exhibiting mechanical illustrations of
astronomical phenomena, a complete cycle of operations representing
scriptural events is performed. Before each hour strikes a cock comes
forward and crows three times, after which angels appear, who by
striking upon a gamut of bells ring out the air of a hymn, and this is
followed by a moving group illustrating the Annunciation of the Virgin
and the descent of a dove, and the cycle is completed by the striking
of the hour.
In the Royal Palace of Versailles there was a very curious clock, the
work of Martinot, a clockmaker of the seventeenth century. Before it
struck the hour two cocks flapped their wings and crowed alternately,
then two little doors opened and a figure came out of each carrying a
gong which was struck by armed guards with their clubs. These figures
having retired, a door in the centre opened and an equestrian figure
of Louis XIV. came out. At the same time a group of clouds separated
giving passage to the figure of Fame which hovered over the head of the
king. An air was then chimed upon the bells, after which the figures
retired; the two guards raised their clubs and the hour was struck.
In the year 1788, Agostino Ramelli published his important work “_Le
diverse ed artificiose Machine_,” and I have reproduced some of the
plates in that beautiful book, a copy of which is before me (one of
which, Fig. 17, see _Frontispiece_, I have chosen to adorn the menu
which is on the table, for no other reason than that it appeared
especially appropriate as figurative of the desire of your humble
Mechanick to be for ever associated with Ye Sette of Odd Volumes).
[Illustration: Fig. 18.]
In the next illustration (Fig. 18) we have a beautiful plate from
Ramelli, in which another of Hero’s inventions, the group of singing
birds is introduced as an ornament in an elaborately furnished room
of the period. In this case the water is in the first instance lifted
by air being blown in through a pipe by a person concealed behind the
wall which in the drawing is broken away to show a mediæval old buffer
engaged in this manly performance.
About the middle of the seventeenth century magnetism began to be
employed for producing the effects of magic, and that extraordinary
versatile all-round Odd Volume, Athanasius Kircher, in his “Magnes
sive de Arte Magnetica,” which was published in 1641 (a copy of which
I have here), describes and illustrates several automata which depend
for their action upon magnetism. Here, for example (Fig. 19), he gives
a representation of the Dove of Archytas, which by the action of a
revolving loadstone, is made to fly around a dial and mark the hours by
pointing to the figures on its edge.
[Illustration: Fig. 20.]
Time will not permit me to say as much about this curious old book
as its quaintness and terribly bad science deserve, I will only show
you one more illustration from it in which a wheel is driven round
by two Æolipiles in the form of human heads, which blow out jets of
steam against the cellular periphery of the wheel, and in the lower
figure the little boilers (C and D) which the heads inclose, are shown
separately, the nozzle of one pointing upwards, while that of the other
has a downward direction.
[Illustration: Fig. 19.]
When Kircher’s book was published Louis XIV. was a child, and it is
stated by several authorities that both Père Truchet and Camus made the
most elaborate automata for his boyish amusement, but as Louis XIV. was
forty years old when Truchet came of age and fifty-five When Camus was
twenty-one it is difficult to reconcile these statements with facts.
Putting aside, however, the question of the period of life when the
king amused himself with such things, it is well authenticated that
Père Truchet, towards the end of the seventeenth century, constructed
for him moving pictures which exhibited extraordinary mechanical skill.
One of these was the representation of a five-act opera, the scenery of
which was automatically changed between the acts. The actors came on
and went off, and performed their parts in pantomime. The proscenium
was about sixteen inches in breadth and thirteen in height, and the
whole of the machinery with the scenery occupied a space only an inch
and a quarter in depth.[8]
The account given by Camus of a toy he constructed for this baby king
of fifty summers is very wonderful. This elaborate automaton consisted
of a small coach drawn by two horses and which contained the figure of
a lady with a footman and a page behind. When this little coach was
placed on the edge of a suitable table the coachman smacked his whip
and the horses immediately started, moving their legs in a most natural
manner; when they reached the opposite edge of the table they turned
sharply at right angles and proceeded along that edge. As soon as the
carriage arrived opposite the king it stopped and both the footman and
page got down and opened the door, the lady alighted, and, curtseying
to the king, presented a petition. After waiting a few minutes she
bowed again to the king and re-entered the carriage, the page got up
again behind, the coachman whipped up his horses and drove on, and the
footman running after the carriage jumped up into his former place. In
the account given by M. de Camus he does not attempt to describe the
mechanism of the machine and we have his word alone for the account of
its performance.
The great philosopher Descartes formed the theory that all animals
are merely automata of a high degree of perfection, and, to prove his
notion, he is said to have constructed an automaton in the form of
a young girl to which he gave the name of “Ma fille Francine.” This
figure came unhappily to a watery grave, for during a voyage by sea
the captain of the vessel in which it was travelling had the curiosity
to open the case in which Francine was packed and, in his astonishment
at the movements of the automaton, which were so wonderfully natural,
he threw the whole thing overboard, believing it to be the work of the
devil.
I now come to what are, if not the most extraordinary _pieces of
mechanism_, certainly the most wonderful _automata_ the world has ever
seen. In the year 1738 that great mechanical genius M. Vaucanson, a
member of the Académie des Sciences exhibited at Paris three very
remarkable automata which were, a flute-player, a figure which played
the shepherd’s pipe of Provence and the drum, and an artificial duck.
The first of these, the flute-player, he described in a Memoir read
before the Académie on the 30th of April, 1738. This automaton was a
wooden figure six feet six inches in height, representing a well-known
antique statue of a Faun, sitting on a rock and mounted on a square
pedestal four feet six from the ground. It was capable of performing
twelve pieces of music on a German flute, the instrument being really
played as a man would play it by blowing across the embouchure
and projecting the air with variable force by movable lips, which
imitated in their action those of a living player, employing a tongue
to regulate the opening, and producing the notes by the tips of the
fingers closing or opening the holes.
The mechanical devices in this automaton are so beautiful and so
scientifically thought out, that I am only sorry that time will not
permit me to describe them in detail, but I will try and make its
general principles clear.
Within the pedestal was a train of wheel-work driven by a weight, which
set into motion a small shaft on which were six cranks disposed at
equal angular distances around it; to these six cranks as many pairs
of bellows were attached (their inlet valves being mechanically opened
and closed so as to make them silent in action). The air supplied by
these bellows was conveyed to three different wind chests, one loaded
with a weight of four pounds, one with a weight of two pounds, and
the last having only the weight of its upper board. These wind chests
communicated with three little chambers in the body of the figure, and
these chambers were all connected with the windpipe which passed up the
throat to the cavity of the mouth and terminated in the two movable
lips which, between them, formed an orifice that could be protruded or
drawn back, and might be further modified by the action of the tongue.
The train of wheels also set into motion a cylinder twenty inches in
diameter and two feet six inches long; on this were fixed a number
of brass bars of different lengths and thicknesses which in their
revolution acted upon a row of fifteen keys or levers; three of these
corresponded to the three little wind chambers containing air at
different pressures, and, by means of little chains, operated their
respective valves. There were seven levers set apart for operating the
fingers, their respective chains making bends at the shoulders and
elbows of the automaton, and terminated at the wrist in the ends of
what I may call metacarpal levers attached to the fingers which were
armed at their tips with leather to imitate the flesh of the natural
hand.
The motion of the mouth was controlled by four of the levers, one to
open the lips so as to give to the wind a greater issue, one to bring
them closer together, and so contract the passage, a third to draw the
lips backward and away from the flute, and the fourth to push them
forward over the edge of the embouchure.
The last of the fifteen levers is the cleverest of all, for it has
the power of controlling the tongue, an accomplishment which I think
everyone (unless he be an Odd Volume) will agree with me is a very
difficult one to acquire.
The barrel worked upon a screwed bearing (similar to that of the
cylinder of a phonograph), so that in its revolution all the levers
described a spiral line sixty-four inches long, and, as the barrel
during the performance made twelve revolutions it followed that the
levers passed over a distance of no less than 768 inches in going
through its performance of twelve tunes.
In a Memoir read before the Académie des Sciences, M. Vaucanson
described the very beautiful methods by which the barrel was set out,
and by which the positions of the bars were determined on its surface
so as to regulate the supply of air and to control the actions of the
fingers, the motion of the lips and the movements of the tongue; and he
gave a most interesting analysis of the acoustics of wind instruments;
but time will not permit me to make more than this passing reference to
them.
The picture on the screen (Fig. 21) is a photographic reproduction of
the plate attached to M. Vaucanson’s Memoir (a somewhat rare little
tract published in 1738) in which his three automata are shown, and I
hold in my hand a copy of the translation by Dr. Desaguliers, published
in London in 1742, which, the imprint tells us, was “_sold at the long
room at the Opera House in the Haymarket, where the mechanical figures
are to be seen at 1, 2, 5, and 7 o’clock in the afternoon_.”
[Illustration: Fig. 21.]
The second of Vaucanson’s automata was his celebrated model of a duck,
which he himself described in a letter to the Abbé de la Fontaine in
1738. This extraordinary automaton (according to the inventor’s own
account of it), exhibited a considerable amount of physiological and
anatomical knowledge and the most profound mechanical skill, for in it
the operation of eating, drinking, and digestion, were very closely
imitated. The duck stretched out its neck to take corn from the
hand, it swallowed it and discharged it in a digested condition, the
digestion being effected not by trituration, but by dissolution, and
(to quote the quaint expressions of the inventor), “The matter digested
in the stomach is conducted by pipes (as in an animal by the guts),
quite to the anus, where there is a sphincter that lets it out. I don’t
pretend,” he says, “to give this as a perfect _digestion_, capable of
producing blood and nutritive particles for the support of the animal.
I hope nobody will be so unkind as to upbraid me with pretending to any
such thing. I only pretend to imitate the mechanism of their action in
these things, _i.e._, first, to swallow the corn; secondly, macerate or
dissolve it; thirdly, to make it come out sensibly changed from what
it was.” But (on the same authority), besides being furnished with a
digestive system, the wings were anatomical imitations of nature; not
only was every bone imitated, but all the processes and eminences of
each bone, and the joints were articulated as in a real animal.
After having been wound up, the duck ate and drank, played in the water
with his bill, making what is described as a “gugling” sound, rose
up on its legs and sat down, flapped its wings, dressed its feathers
with its bill, and performed all these different operations without
requiring to be touched again.
It is important, however, to point out that this digestion story can
only be “digested” _cum grano salis_, and this is supplied in the
sequel which furnishes the explanation. In the year 1840 the automaton
was found hidden away in a garret in Berlin; it was very much out of
order, and a mechanician of the name of Georges Tiets undertook to
repair it. It was taken to Paris, and in the year 1844 was exhibited in
the Place du Palais Royal. In the course of this exhibition one of the
wings became deranged, and it was put into the hands of Robert-Houdin
for repairs. Robert-Houdin took advantage of this opportunity for
examining the so-called digestive system of the automaton, and he thus
describes its action: