baignant dans l’eau. Le mouvement que faisait le bec en barbotant
divisait la nourriture et en facilitait l’introduction dans un tuyau
placé sous le bec inférieur du canard; l’eau et la graine, ainsi
aspirés tombaient dans une boîte placée sous le ventre de _l’automate_,
laquelle se vidait toutes les trois ou quatre séances. L’évacuation
était chose préparée à l’avance; une espèce de boullie, composée de
mie de pain colorée de vert, était poussée par un coup de pompe et
soigneusement reçue, sur un plateau en argent, comme produit d’une
digestion artificielle,” so that, after all, this wonderful digestion
of Vaucanson’s duck was nothing more than a clever trick.
The third automaton of Vaucanson was a figure that played on a
shepherd’s pipe with one hand while it beat a drum with the other. The
instrument played upon was a little pipe with only three holes, and
the different notes were produced by a greater or less pressure of air
and a more or less closing of the holes, and every note, no matter how
rapid was the succession, had to be modified by the tongue. In this
machine there were provided as many different pressures of air as there
were notes to be sounded, and the mechanism by which these operations
and the fingering of the keys were effected reflects the greatest
credit on the memory of this remarkable man.[9]
The Automaton duck of Vaucanson was, to a certain extent, anticipated
by the Comte de Gennes, Governor of the Island of Saint Christopher,
who, we are told by Père Labat, constructed a peacock which could walk
about and pick up grains of corn, which it swallowed and digested. I
have no means of determining whether or not Vaucanson took the idea of
his duck from this automaton, but that Vaucanson had imitators there is
abundant evidence to prove. In the year 1752, Du Moulin, a silversmith,
travelled all over Europe with automata similar to those of Vaucanson,
and they were afterwards purchased in Nuremberg, by Bereis, a
counsellor of Helmstadt, at whose place they were seen by Beckmann in
1754.
In the year 1760, there was a writing automaton exhibited in Vienna,
which was constructed by Friedrich von Knaus, and about the same time
a number of very curious automata were made by Le Droz, of Chaux de
Fonds, in Neufchatel. One of these was a clock, presented to the King
of Spain, which had, in addition to several moving figures, a sheep
that bleated in a very natural way, and a dog mounting guard over
a basket of fruit; if anyone attempted to touch the basket the dog
barked and growled, and if any of the fruit were taken away the barking
continued until it was restored.
The son of this man (who lived at Geneva), was no less skilful a
mechanician, for he made a gold snuffbox about 4-1/2 inches long by 3
inches broad, in which when a spring was touched a little door flew
open and a beautifully modelled bird of green enamelled gold rose
up, fluttered its wings and tail, and commenced a trilling song of
great beauty and power, its beak keeping time with the notes. Such a
snuffbox was exhibited in the Great Exhibition of 1851, proving as
great a popular attraction as the Koh-i-nur diamond, and (owing to the
kindness of my friend Mr. Tripplin the well-known horologist) I am now
able to show you one of these very beautiful triumphs of mechanical
skill.
Another of the younger Le Droz’s inventions was his celebrated drawing
automaton, which was a life-size figure of a man sitting behind a table
and holding a style in his hand. A sheet of vellum was placed on the
table, and the figure began to draw portraits of well-known persons
with extraordinary correctness. This automaton was shown in London, and
attracted considerable attention at the time.
[Illustration: Fig. 22.]
I must now re-introduce to you another old friend, first shown here by
Brother Manning. Here he is! a little acrobat that turns somersaults
backwards down stairs. This is not, as many have thought, an invention
of that great mechanical genius, Robert-Houdin, for it is figured and
described in Musschenbroeck’s “Introductio ad philosophiam naturalem,”
which was published in Leyden in 1762 (a year after the author’s
death), and half a century before Robert-Houdin was born, and on the
screen you have a facsimile (Fig. 22) of Musschenbroeck’s illustration
of this mechanical toy, which he refers to as “an old invention of
the Chinese.” It is also described by Ozanam in his “Recréations
Mathématiques et Physiques,” the first edition of which was published
in 1694. The figure I now throw on the screen (Fig. 23), is taken from
the second edition of this work which was edited by Montucla in 1790.
The principle is exceedingly simple; the whole thing depends upon the
centre of gravity being suddenly changed by a shifting weight. Within
a tube contained within the body, is a small quantity of mercury, and
the moment that this tube is inclined to the horizon the mercury flows
to the lower end tilting one figure over the other, and with such force
that it is carried over by its inertia far enough to tilt the tubes,
and cause the mercury to flow to the opposite end, and the process
is repeated as long as there are stairs to descend; by a very simple
arrangement of strings passing over pulleys, the legs and arms are
always brought into suitable positions to support the figure in every
position of its descent.
[Illustration: Fig. 23.]
I now come to the automaton which for some years was the wonder of
every country in Europe, the automaton chess-player of the Baron
Wolfgang von Kempelen, constructed in 1776. This automaton was a
life-size sitting figure dressed as a Turk, and having before it a
large rectangular chest or cabinet, 3 feet 6 inches long, 2 feet deep,
and 2 feet 6 inches high, on the top of which was a chessboard and
a set of men. The seat on which the figure sat, was attached to the
cabinet and the whole was on castors, so that it could be wheeled
about the floor. When the automaton was exhibited, the exhibitor began
operations by opening the doors of the cabinet so as to show its
contents, and here I will throw on the screen a copy (Fig. 24) of one
of the plates in a curious pamphlet,[10] printed anonymously in 1821,
but probably by Professor Willis. It must, however, be recollected
that these doors were opened in succession, and never all at the same
time, but whichever door was opened, nothing could be seen but wheels,
levers, connecting rods, strings and cylinders. After this the doors
were closed and locked, the machinery was wound up, and the figure was
ready to play a game of chess with any one who would challenge him. On
commencing the game the figure moved its head, and seemed to look at
every part of the board. When it checked the king, it nodded its head
three times, and when it threatened the queen, it nodded twice. It also
shook its head when its adversary made a false move, and replaced the
offending piece. It nearly always won the game, but occasionally lost.
When it was completed, it was exhibited in Riga, Moscow, St.
Petersburg, Berlin, Presburg and Vienna, coming to London in 1783, and
having been seen by many thousands during those years with out its
secret being discovered, but in the year 1789, a book was published
by Mr. Freyherre of Dresden, in which he showed that “a well taught
boy very thin and tall of his age, (sufficiently so that he could be
concealed in a drawer below the chessboard,) agitated the whole.” In
the plate before you, you will see that the author has shown in dotted
lines, the position a boy might take when the left hand door was
opened.
[Illustration: Fig. 24.]
The real story of this most ingenious and successful scientific fraud
is so interesting that I must tell it here, although it puts for
ever Baron von Kempelen’s chess-player outside the circle of true
automata. In the year 1776, a regiment, half Russian and half Polish,
mutinied at Riga. The mutineers were defeated, and their chief officer,
Worouski, fell, having had both his thighs fractured by a cannon ball.
He hid himself in a ditch until after dark, when he dragged himself
to the neighbouring house of a doctor named Osloff, a man of great
benevolence, who took him in and concealed him, but he had to amputate
both his legs. During the time of Worouski’s illness, Osloff was
visited by his intimate friend the Baron von Kempelen, and after many
consultations and much thought, Kempelen hit upon the idea of conveying
him out of the country by devising this automaton (as Worouski was a
great chess-player), and in three months the figure was finished.
In order to avoid suspicion he gave performances _en route_ to the
frontier. The first performance was given at Toula, on the 6th of
November, 1777 (that is to say exactly 114 years ago to-day). The
machine and Worouski were packed in a case and started for Prussia, but
when they reached Riga, orders came from the Empress Katherine II.,
for Baron von Kempelen to go to St. Petersburg with his automaton.
The Empress played several games with him, but was always beaten, and
then she wanted to buy the figure. This was an awkward situation for
Kempelen, and he was at his wits’ end to know how to wriggle out of
it. He declared that his own presence was absolutely necessary for the
working of the machine, and that it was quite impossible for him to
sell it, and, after some further discussion, he was allowed to proceed
on his journey.
This chess-player was, in the same year, purchased by Mons. Anthon, who
took it all over Europe. At his death it came into the hands of Johann
Maelzel, the inventor of the Metronome, who sent it to the United
States. It was afterwards sent back to Europe, and in the year 1844 was
in the possession of a mechanician of Belleville, named Croizier.
Maelzel himself was a mechanician of very considerable skill, and he
constructed an automaton trumpeter, which was exhibited at Vienna
about the year 1804, which played the Austrian and French cavalry
marches, and marches and allegros by Weigl, Dussek, and Pleyel.
Maelzel was, after that, appointed mechanician to the Austrian Court,
and constructed an automatic orchestra, in which trumpets, flutes,
clarionets, violins, violoncellos, drums, cymbals, and a triangle, were
introduced, and this attracted very great interest in the Austrian
capital at the time.
In the year 1772 there was in Spring Gardens, near Charing Cross,
a most remarkable collection of automata exhibited in a place of
entertainment known as Cox’s Museum, and here I have an original copy
of the “_Descriptive catalogue, of the several superb and magnificent
pieces of mechanism and jewellery exhibited in Mr. Cox’s Museum, at
Spring Gardens, Charing Cross_.” To which this footnote is added,
“_Hours of Admission, 11, 2, and 7, every day (Sundays excepted),
tickets Half a Guinea each, admitting one person, to be had at Mr.
Cox’s, No. 103, Shoe Lane_.” This was a very extraordinary exhibition,
and contained upwards of twenty large and elaborate automata, several
of them being adorned with gold and precious stones. Some were
complicated clocks, some were large groups of animals, and figures with
fountains and cascades around them. None of these objects was less
than nine feet high, and some were as high as sixteen feet. I can find
nothing important enough from a Mechanick’s point of view, to describe
in detail, but it was the precursor in the same place of the exhibition
of Monsieur Maillardet, which was one of the London attractions at the
beginning of the present century.
M. Maillardet exhibited a bird automaton (similar to that already
referred to which was made by Le Droz), and whose performance lasted
four minutes with one winding up. He constructed also a spider,
entirely of steel, which imitated all the actions of the real animal,
it ran round and round the table in a spiral line, tending towards the
centre. Maillardet made automata representing a caterpillar, a mouse,
a lizard, and a serpent; the last crawled about all over the table,
darted its tongue in and out, and produced a hissing sound.
Maillardet’s most important automata were, however, his drawing and
writing figure, and his pianoforte player. The former was a kneeling
boy, who wrote in ink with an ordinary pen, sentences in English
and in French, and drew landscapes. The pianist was a figure of a
lady, who performed eighteen pieces of music. She began by bowing
to the audience, her bosom heaved, and her eyes first looked at the
music, and then followed the motion of her fingers, and the music
was produced by the keys being played on by the fingers; but the
most remarkable of M. Maillardet’s machines, was a magician, or
fortune-teller, which gave answers to some twenty given questions,
which were inscribed on as many counters or medallions. One of these
medallions having been put into a drawer, the figure arose from his
seat, bowed to the audience, and described mystic circles in the air
with his wand; after appearing to consult his book of mysteries, he
struck a little door behind him, which flew open, and exhibited an
appropriate answer to the question on the medallion.
The general principle upon which this automaton’s power of selection
was founded lay in the fact that in the edge of each medallion there
was a small hole drilled, but no two holes were drilled to the same
depth, and, by an exceedingly delicate mechanism, the varying depth
to which a pin could be thrust into the edge of a disc, was caused to
control the mechanism by which the various answers were selected, and
which were exhibited when the little door flew open.
The next great master of automaton design and construction, was that
wonderful genius Robert-Houdin (about whom our worthy Secretary and
Seer discoursed to us so pleasantly and so instructively nearly a year
ago). Brother Manning’s paper was so complete in itself, and that part
of it which dealt with automata was so ably illustrated, that it will
be quite unnecessary for me to add to the length of this communication,
by going over that ground again, so I will merely enumerate the
automata of that interesting man and pass on to still more recent times.
The first of the automata of Robert-Houdin was a confectioner’s shop,
in which a pastry-cook came out of the door when requested and offered
to the spectators patisserie, bonbons, and refreshments of every
description, and within the shop might be seen the assistants making
pastry, rolling out the dough, and putting it into the oven. Then he
made two clowns, known as Auriol and Débureau. The first of these
performed a number of acrobatic feats upon a chair which was held at
arm’s length by the other. After this, the figure of Auriol smoked a
pipe, and accompanied on the flageolet an air played by the orchestra.
Another was an acrobat which performed tricks on the trapèze, and the
last to which I shall refer, was his celebrated writing figure, which
is illustrated in Brother Manning’s “Opusculum,” No. XXIV., to which I
must refer you for a great deal of interesting information respecting
that remarkable man.
A contemporary of Robert-Houdin was Mons. Mareppe, who constructed a
very wonderful automaton violin player, and which was exhibited at the
Conservatoire at Paris, in the year 1838, and which performed on the
violin by bowing and fingering the strings, and in an account of the
performance which was published at the time in “Galignani’s Messenger,”
it is stated that the musical execution was so perfect as to bring
tears into the eyes of the audience.
Coming to our own period, from the time of Robert-Houdin, there have
been no great automata which will live in the history of the subject,
until the year 1875, when Mr. J. N. Maskelyne (who, I am happy to
tell you, is honouring us with his presence to-night) exhibited at
the Egyptian Hall his marvellous “Psycho.” This was a seated figure,
supported by a cylindrical pedestal of glass which stood upon a little
platform, and, being on castors, could be wheeled about the floor. This
automaton can actually play a game of whist, selecting the cards from a
rack in front of it, and playing a most skilful game. The machine works
apparently without any mechanical connection with anything outside,
and the delicacy and precision of its actions, display the most
consummate skill in design, and give to its inventor a high position
for mechanical science. This automaton also works out arithmetical
calculations, with numbers from one to a hundred millions, showing the
result behind a door which opens in front of its box.
Another of Mr. Maskelyne’s automata, is the celebrated “Zoe” of 1877,
a sitting figure supported like the last on a glass pedestal so as to
exclude the possibility of an electrical system of communication. A
sheet of paper is fastened on to the table in front, and the figure
traces out very fair portraits of public characters chosen by the
audience out of a list of some two hundred names.
In respect to these most beautiful machines I must refrain from
revealing to you the secrets of their working, and that for two
reasons, first, because I do not know them myself; and second, because
Mr. Maskelyne is here and is doubtless only impatient to jump up when I
sit down and tell us all about them.
I do not intend to say anything about speaking machines or to do
more than make a passing reference to the very interesting work and
researches of Kircher in 1650, Van Helmont, 1667, Kratzenstein, in
1780, L’Abbé Mical, in 1783, Von Kempelen in 1791, Willis in 1829,
Wheatstone in 1837, or of Faber in 1862. All these mechanicians and
physicists studied the philosophy of speech and produced machines or
parts of machines, which could utter vowels, words or even sentences,
but these machines were operated by keys and stops and were, in no
sense of the term, automata.
I must, however, refer to one of the greatest marvels of modern
science, the phonograph which Mr. Edison has applied in the
construction of his talking dolls. Edison’s talking doll is a figure,
within which a little phonograph, driven by a little winch, is
concealed, and which repeats in a clear voice any sentence or rhyme
which may have been spoken against its recording cylinder or disc.
I am deeply disappointed to be unable to show you one of these most
interesting automata to-night, for one is on its way to me across the
Atlantic. Colonel Gourand very kindly sent for one that I might show
it to you this evening, and I deeply regret that it has not arrived in
time, for the Odd Volumes would, otherwise, have been the first to hear
its voice in Europe.[11]
In the phonograph, that splendid triumph of acoustical and mechanical
science, we have literally fulfilled, the prediction made by Sir David
Brewster in 1883, when he wrote “I have no doubt that before another
century is completed, a talking and a singing Machine will be numbered
among the conquests of Science.”
No one who is familiar with any of the great European capitals can
have failed to notice in the windows of the higher class of toy-shops,
clock-work automata of various kinds. We have jugglers and rope
dancers, conjurers, pianists, violinists, harpists and trumpeters,
dancing niggers, figures fighting, knitting, sewing, writing, and
engaged in almost every occupation performed by human beings, but none
that I have seen are fit for comparison with the wonderful mechanical
works of Vaucanson, Robert-Houdin or Maskelyne; mechanically they are
nearly identical with one another, and differ only in the external
application of the internal machinery. At International Exhibitions one
sees one or two of superior merit, but I have not recently seen any of
sufficient importance to bring before you this evening. The pianists
and other musicians merely move their hands on their instruments,
but the music (save the mark) whether it be a violin or a trumpet,
comes from a musical snuffbox inside which is generally wound up by
a different key. These figures are usually very costly, and I am
always puzzled to know who are the people who purchase them. The best
are generally those mechanical toys which represent the movements of
animals, and here I have a mechanical bear which is rather amusing,
and it is ingenious because by a very simple combination of clock work
with cranks and strings a number of different motions is obtained; we
have the mouth opening and shutting, the head going from side to side,
the lips moving and the whole animal bowing to the spectators.
Within the last few years a most extraordinary amount of mechanical
ingenuity has been brought to bear upon the construction of small
automatic toys, which are sold in the streets for a few pence, and
I think, even more than the extraordinarily simple and ingenious
contrivances by which the various effects are produced, the great
inventive merit consists in a design and method of manufacture by which
they can be turned out, with a profit, at so insignificant a cost. I
have brought together a few examples, a very minute fraction of the
hundreds of forms that exist, but selected merely to illustrate the
different types of principle of action.
A very favourite motive power is a wound up spring, consisting of
strands of vulcanized india-rubber, and here I have one of the
well-known butterflies which come out in Paris in 1878, where they
filled the air of the Avenue de l’Opera, the shops of which were then
occupied chiefly by hawkers of toys. The motive power of this toy
is nothing more than a light screw propeller or fan rotated by the
untwisting of a spring, while on the body of the machine are two fixed
wings or fins to prevent the whole machine from rotating. The action is
wonderfully like that of an animal, perhaps most like that of a bat.
Here again the same principle is applied in a running mouse, and this
is especially interesting from the fact that the machine winds itself
up the moment the tension of the cord is relaxed, and as the spindle of
the wheels is the flexible rubber itself the peculiar scuttling action
of a mouse is well imitated.
There is again a large class of mechanical toys in which there is a
combination of a rubber spring with a wheel and escapement, the pallets
of which by their reciprocating motion producing whatever effect may
be desired; the swimming fish is one of them, the wagging of the tail
being produced in the way I have described. Here is another displaying
considerable ingenuity. In this case an escapement wheel works a crutch
which by a pair of cranks linked together causes each of two pugilists
to turn a little way backwards and forwards on one heel, and the arms
being hung loosely to the shoulders by rubber hinges give to the
figures the appearance of hitting out vigorously.
I have here a couple of figures which I admit do not contain their
motive power within themselves but they require so little aid from
outside and do so much for themselves that I have been tempted to
bring them in. Here is a monkey climbing a rope, and its progression
is insured by the simplest possible device, the string passes over one
pin and under another in his posterior hands while the anterior pair of
hands grip the rope with a slight degree of friction: if the string be
tightened the lower hands act as a lever which pushes the body up, but
when it is slack it slips round the pins and does no work, in other
words the grip of the hands is greater than that of the feet when the
cord is slack but less when it is tight.
In this little animated skeleton, we have an immense effect produced by
an extraordinarily small external motion. The squeeze that I give to
this U shaped spring, by varying the tension of the twisted strings, on
which the skeleton is suspended, is almost infinitesimal—but it gives
to the skeleton considerably more energy than is usually to be found in
skeletons.
Here we have a walking figure whose action depends upon gravity, but
his progression is checked by the friction of his feet on the board on
which he performs, first one foot catches and then another, and each
time his inertia turns him round, which gives him an appearance of
having been in the company of teetotallers, or can he have been dining
with the Sette of Odd Volumes?
A familiar form of mechanical or automatic toys is in the form of a
box or frame having a glass front, behind which figures of acrobats,
rope-dancers and moving groups are set into motion by sand falling on
a wheel within the case; and it is an ingenious feature of these toys
that they are “wound up” by simply rolling the box over on its edge
through one revolution, which has the effect of lifting the fallen sand
back into the upper reservoir.