Machines considered magical in ancient times--Remarkable modern
automata--Minute engines--The calculating machine.
The light of modern science has revealed to us many important secrets.
In the dark ages there were but few books; it was then the fashion to
write them in Latin; and as, from their costliness, they could only
be obtained by men of wealth, so they could be understood alone by
such as had enjoyed the advantages of education. Science is now easily
accessible, but, though it is not necessary for us all to become
philosophers, there is no good reason why people generally should
not be acquainted with some of the most remarkable phenomena of the
natural world. The inspired psalmist has said, “The works of the Lord
are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein;” and it
becomes all, according to their means and opportunities, to lay this
truth to heart. We proceed now to consider some effects regarded as
magical, which are satisfactorily explained on natural principles,
beginning with mechanics.
An ability to construct wonderful or magical machines was manifest
among the ancients. Archytas, a native of Tarentum, in Italy, who
lived four hundred years before the birth of our Lord and Saviour, is
said to have made a wooden dove, which flew and sustained itself for
some time in the air. Other clever contrivances are also mentioned. “A
magician,” says D’Israeli, “was annoyed, as philosophers still are, by
passengers in the street; and he, particularly so, by having horses led
to drink under his window. He made a magical horse of wood, according
to one of the books of Hermes, which perfectly answered his purpose, by
frightening away the horses, or, rather, the grooms! The wooden horse,
no doubt, gave some palpable kick.”
It is worthy of remark, that tales of ancient times must be received
with caution. We find it necessary, even at a much later period. The
tricks which now amuse or astonish the populace at a country fair,
would be greatly exaggerated in a credulous age, and often assume
even the most portentous colouring. Nor is it difficult to guess, and
sometimes to discover, the stages of similar and great mystifications.
The following instance is rather remarkable. On Charles V. entering
Nuremberg, a celebrated German astronomer, whose real name was Johann
Müller, but who styled himself Regiomontanus, exhibited some automata
which he had constructed. These were an eagle of wood, which, placed
on the gate of the city, rose up and flapped its wings, while the
emperor was passing below; and a fly, made of steel, which walked round
a table. Now all this is sufficiently credible. But what is the record
of the chroniclers only a few years after? That the wooden eagle sprang
from the tower and soared in the air; and that the steel fly flew three
times round the emperor, and then alighted buzzing on his hand!
In many instances, the mechanism of modern times is surprisingly
minute. A watchmaker in London presented his majesty George III.
with a repeating watch he had constructed, set in a ring. Its
size was something less than a silver two-pence; it contained one
hundred-and-twenty-five different parts, and weighed, altogether, no
more than five pennyweights and seven grains!
In an exhibition of Maillardet, which the writer has seen, the lid of a
box suddenly flew open, and a small bird of beautiful plumage started
forth from its nest. The wings fluttered, and the bill opening with
the tremulous motion peculiar to singing birds, it began to warble.
After a succession of notes, whose sound well filled a large apartment,
it retired to its nest, and the lid closed. Its performances occupied
about four minutes. In the same exhibition were an automatic spider,
a caterpillar, a mouse, and a serpent; all of which exhibited the
peculiar movements of the living creatures. The spider was made of
steel: it ran on the surface of a table for three minutes, and its
course tended towards the middle of the table. The serpent crawled
about in every direction, opened its mouth, hissed, and darted forth
its tongue.
Several years ago, a watchmaker, residing in a town in which the
writer lived, made a working model of a steam-engine, the packing-case
of which was a walnut-shell. On showing it one day to a gentleman,
the machine was suddenly stopped, the mechanic remarking, “There is
something wrong in one of the safety-valves.” “Safety-valve!” exclaimed
the observer; “I have not yet been able to detect the fly-wheel!”
The most curious specimen of minute workmanship, however, with which
we are acquainted, is a high-pressure engine, the work of a watchmaker
having a stand at the Polytechnic Institution, and first exhibited in
1845. Each part was made according to scale, it worked by atmospheric
pressure, in lieu of steam, with the greatest activity, yet it was so
small, that it stood on a fourpenny-piece, with ground to spare, and,
with the exception of the fly-wheel, it might be covered with a thimble.
D’Alembert describes a flute-player, constructed by Vaucanson, which
he saw exhibited at Paris in 1738. The writer has also seen one, in
which a figure appeared seated, and then rose and played a tune, the
motions of the fingers seeming to accord with the notes. He cannot
answer for the music having been produced by the movements of the hands
of the automaton. D’Alembert affirms, however, that the automaton of
Vaucanson really projected the air with its lips against the embouchure
of the instrument, producing the different octaves by expanding and
contracting their openings, giving more or less air, and regulating the
tones by its fingers, in the manner of living performers. The height
of the figure, with the pedestal, containing some of the machinery,
was nearly six feet; it commanded three octaves, several notes of
which musicians find it difficult to produce. Some years ago, two
automaton flute-players were exhibited in this country, of the size of
life, which performed ten or twelve duets. That they actually played
the flute might be proved, by placing the finger on any hole that was
unstopped for a moment by the automata.
M. Vaucanson produced a flageolet-player, who beat a tambourine with
one hand. The flageolet had only three holes, and some notes were made
by half-stopping these. The lowest note was produced by a force of
wind equal to an ounce, the highest by one of fifty-six French pounds.
A duck was, however, considered to be his chef-d’œuvre; it dabbled in
the mire, swam, drank, quacked, raised and moved its wings, and dressed
its feathers with its bill; it even extended its neck, took barley
from the hand and swallowed it, during which process the muscles of
the neck were seen in motion, and it also digested the food by means
of materials provided for its solution in the stomach. The inventor
made no secret of the machinery, which excited, at the time, great
admiration.
Maelzel, the inventor of the metronome, or time-measurer, frequently
used to aid pupils in music, exhibited in Vienna in 1809, another
automaton of singular power; which appeared in the uniform of a
trumpeter in the Austrian dragoon regiment Albert, with his instrument
placed to his mouth. When the figure was pressed on the left shoulder,
it played not only the Austrian cavalry march, and all the signals of
that army, but also a march and allegro by Weigl, which was accompanied
by the whole orchestra. The dress of the figure was then changed into
that of a French trumpeter of the guards, when it began to play a
French cavalry march, all the signals, the march of Dussek, and an
allegro of Pleyel, accompanied again by the full orchestra. Maelzel
publicly wound up his instrument only twice on the left hip. The sound
of the trumpet was pure and peculiarly agreeable.
About thirty years ago, Maillardet exhibited, in Spring Gardens, a
variety of automata, which the writer had an opportunity of seeing
at a later period. One was the figure of a boy, who wrote sentences,
and drew certain objects with remarkable promptitude and correctness.
Another was a pianiste, seated at a piano-forte, on which she played
eighteen tunes. All her movements were graceful. Before beginning a
tune, she made a gentle inclination of the head to her auditors; her
bosom heaved, and her eyes followed the motion of her fingers over the
finger-board. When the automaton was once wound up, it would continue
playing for an hour; and the principal part of the machinery employed
was freely exposed to public view. It has been doubted whether the
music was actually produced by the automaton: since the time now
referred to, the writer has examined another, in which the keys of the
instrument were certainly acted upon by the touch.
He has also seen, at various times, several very curiously constructed
automata: the figure of a lady, who could walk along a level surface,
throwing out the limbs, and moving the head from side to side; a
tippler, who could pour out wine from a decanter into a glass, open
his mouth, and swallow the fluid, and thus proceed till the bottle was
drained; and a performer on the slack rope, whose exceedingly rapid
movements of the body, the arms, and the head, all consistent and
graceful, were truly amazing.
A very beautiful automaton was exhibited, a few years ago, in Paris,
and subsequently in London. It appeared in a court suit, sitting at
a table, in the attitude of writing. Several questions, inscribed on
tablets, were placed on the table on which the whole apparatus stood,
and visitors might select any one or more at pleasure. The tablet,
containing a question, on being handed to the attendant, was placed
in a drawer, and, as soon as it was closed, the figure traced on
paper an appropriate reply. On the question being given, “Who may be
volatile without a crime?” the answer was, “A butterfly.” And as the
figure could draw a response as well as write it, when the question was
put, “What is the symbol of fidelity?” it drew, in outline, the form
of a greyhound. In the same way it proceeded throughout the series of
questions.
In some instances, the effect of automata is increased by the
exhibiter proposing certain questions, and receiving responses from
the figure--as shaking the head, to denote a negative; or nodding, to
indicate assent. It is evident that here the inquiries or remarks are
thrown in to accord with the motions that the figure is contrived to
make. When, however, a performer, as one has recently done, puts a
whistle in the mouth of an automaton, and then, sitting down by its
side, plays a tune on a guitar, desiring the figure to accompany him;
the hasty sounds with which the figure seems inclined to begin, the
irregularity with which it proceeds, and the long and loud closing
note, may all be easily supplied by some confederate. Surprising
as are the effects produced by many automata, it would be wrong to
infer that their only results are the wonder of the multitude, or
gain or applause to their inventors. “They gave rise,” as sir David
Brewster has remarked, “to the most ingenious mechanical devices, and
introduced, among the higher order of artists, habits of nice and
accurate execution in the formation of the most delicate pieces of
machinery.” Those combinations of wheels and pinions, which almost
eluded observation, “reappeared in the stupendous mechanism of our
spinning-machines and our steam-engines. The elements of the tumbling
puppet were revived in the chronometer, which now conducts our navy
through the ocean; and the shapeless wheel which directed the hand
of the drawing automaton (of Maillardet,) has served, in the present
age, to guide the movements of the tambouring-engine. Those mechanical
wonders, which in one century enriched only the conjurer who used
them, contributed in another to augment the wealth of the nation; and
those automatic toys which once amused the vulgar, are now employed in
extending the power, and promoting the civilisation of our species. In
whatever way, indeed, the power of genius may invent or combine, and to
whatever bad or even ludicrous purposes that invention or combination
may be originally applied, society receives a gift which it can never
lose; and though the value of the seed may not at once be recognised,
though it may lie long unproductive in the ungenial soil of human
knowledge, it will; some time or other, evolve its germ, and yield to
mankind its natural and abundant harvest.”[D]
A singular fact is connected with the early history of the Astronomical
Society of London. A valuable set of tables, for reducing the observed
to the true places of stars, was in course of preparation, at the
expense of the society, including above three thousand stars, and
comprehending all known to those of the fifth magnitude, inclusive,
and all the most useful of the sixth and seventh. An incident which
now occurred, gave rise to one of the most extraordinary of modern
inventions. To insure accuracy in the calculation of certain tables,
separate computers had been employed; and two members of the society
having been chosen to compare the results, detected so many errors, as
to induce one of them to express his regret that the work could not be
executed by a machine. For this, the other member, Mr. Babbage, at once
replied, that “this was possible;” and, persevering in the inquiry
which had thus suggested itself, he produced a machine for calculating
tables with surprising accuracy.
The calculating part of the machinery occupies a space of about ten
feet broad, ten feet high, and five feet deep. It consists of seven
steel axes, erected over one another, each of them carrying eighteen
wheels, five inches in diameter, having on them small barrels, and
inscribed with the symbols 0, 1, to 9. The machine calculates to
eighteen decimal places, true to the last figure; but, by subsidiary
contrivances, it is possible to calculate to thirty decimal places.
Mr. Babbage has since contrived a machine, much more simple in its
construction, and far more extensive in its application.
In thus enumerating various displays of mechanical genius, we are
reminded that the prophet Isaiah, after describing the diverse labours
of the husbandman, adds, “This also cometh forth from the Lord of
hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.” In all
the evidence we have of human talent, then, let us acknowledge that
“every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down
from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning,” Jas. i. 17. Would that the gifts of God were always used
for the Divine glory!