This automaton recalls the famous Turkish chess player that was constructed in Hungary by Baron Kempelen in 1769, and exhibited in Germany, Russia, France, England, and America, without the public succeeding in ascertaining its mechanism. In 1819 and 1820 a man named Melzer showed it anew in England. Robert-Houdin saw it in 1844 at the house of a mechanician of Belleville, named Cronior. Since then its fate has been unknown, and it is very probable the Az Rah of Bordeaux is nothing else than the Turk of Vienna. Our readers who have seen it at the Exhibition will be enabled to decide the question after reading the description that we shall give. Baron Kempelen, a Hungarian nobleman and an Aulic Councilor of the Royal Chamber of the Domains of Hungary, being at Vienna, was called to the court to be present at a séance of magnetism that a Frenchman named Pelletier was to hold before the empress. Kempelen was known as an ingenious amateur of mechanics, and the persons present having asked his opinion in regard to the experiments which he had witnessed, he said that he believed he could make a machine that would be much more astonishing than anything that he had just seen. The empress took him at his word and expressed a desire that he should begin the work. M. De Kempelen returned to Presbourg, in his own country, and in six months produced an automaton which played a game of chess against any one who offered himself, and nearly always won it.

This automaton was a human figure of natural size, which was dressed in the Turkish style, seated on a chair, and placed behind a wooden chest on which was laid the chessboard. He took the pieces up with his hand in order to play them, turned his head to the right and left in order to see them better, and nodded his head three times when he checkmated the king, and twice on attacking the queen. If his adversary made a mistake, he shook his head, removed the wrongly-played piece, deposited it outside of the chessboard, and played his own. The showman, who stood near the automaton, wound up the mechanism after every ten or twelve moves, and occasionally replaced certain wheels; and at every motion of the Turk were heard noises of moving wheelwork. To show that there was nothing within but mechanism, doors were opened in the chest and body. There was also a magnet lying on the table to make believe that magnetism, then in great vogue, and as yet full of mystery, played a preponderating rôle in the affair. M. De Kempelen was accustomed to say: “The machine is very simple, and the mechanism appears wonderful only because all has been combined with great patience in order to produce the illusion.”

Many hypotheses were put forth on the subject, and two books, one published in 1785, and the other in 1789, were devoted to a discussion of them. Those that appeared to be most likely were, on the one hand, that the Turk’s body contained an extraordinarily small dwarf; and, on the other, that the showman acted upon the automaton from a distance by the aid of magnetic influences. These two explanations gave a very imperfect account of the facts, and it was not until some years ago that the trick was unveiled in an anonymous book.

The following is an exact description of the apparatus and the successive operations performed by the exhibitor:

THE AUTOMATON CHESS PLAYER.

[Enlarged illustration] (280 kB)

The chest was three and one-half feet long, two feet wide, and two and one-half feet high, and was provided with doors and drawers whose use will presently be seen. The front part of the chair seat was affixed to the chest, and the back part rested on the floor by two legs which, as well as the four legs of the chest, were provided with casters. The right hand of the manikin was movable on the upper part of the chest that formed a table, and, at the beginning of operations, held a pipe, which was afterward removed, and it rested upon a cushion lying in a certain definite position. The chessboard in front of the player was eighteen inches square. The exhibitor, provided with a light, begins by allowing the interior of the apparatus to be examined by the spectators. He opens the door A ([Fig. 1]), and allows to be seen a series of gearings that occupy the whole width of the chest. Then he passes behind and opens the door B ([Figs. 2 and 8]), opposite the door A, and introduces a light into the interior to show that it is empty. The spectators standing on the other side can, in fact, see the light shine through the different pieces of mechanism through the door, A, that remains open. He afterward locks the door B, and comes in front of the chest and opens the drawer G, from which he removes the chessmen, and a cushion which he slides under the left arm of the automaton. This drawer seems to serve no other purpose than the preservation of these objects. He then opens the two doors, C C, in front of the chest, and shows a large closet lined at the sides with dark drapery, and containing two boxes, L and M, of unequal size, and a few belts and pulleys that seem to be designed for putting in motion the mechanism contained in the boxes. Passing behind again, he opens the door D, and introduces a light into the interior of the chest to show that it has not a false bottom. Then he closes this door again, and also the doors A and C, by means of the same key. Next he turns the apparatus around so as to show the public the other side (shown in [Fig. 2]), and raises the clothing of the Turk, and opens the apertures, E and F, in the back and thigh, to show that no one is hidden within. These doors remain constantly open afterward. Finally the showman turns the Turk back to his former position, facing the spectator, removes the cushion and pipe, and then the game may begin.

We shall explain as clearly as possible how the game was directed by a man who succeeded in hiding himself by a series of movements when the different doors of the apparatus were successively opened: