Here is another in which several very curious motions are reproduced. This beautiful little mechanical toy ([Fig. 26]) represents a circus girl riding round the ring, and occasionally leaping over a bar or bowing to the audience, while the prancing action of the horse is ingeniously imitated. The motive power is derived from the spinning of a top or fly-wheel, supported in a frame attached to the bar to which the horse is fixed; and, as the spindle of the top spins on the bevel edge of the circular base, the horse is caused to gallop round in a circle, and, being supported on the table by a roller mounted eccentrically on its axis, it prances up and down as it runs. The equestrienne is attached to a light lever pivotted on the rotating frame and revolving with it. Twice in its revolution this lever is lifted by a cam, forming part of the base; the first lift causes the figure to give a little bow, and the second, which is much greater, makes her leap over the bar under which the horse runs. This little machine is one of the most mechanically ingenious of the modern automaton toys, and it is made at the cost of only a few pence.
Fig. 26.
The last I shall show you is this elephant. In this little machine we have a fly-wheel, which with its vertical shaft looks like an umbrella over the Nabob who sits on the top, the vertical shaft passes into the body of the elephant, and there by a simple frictional gearing, rotates a couple of cranks to which the legs are connected. The effect of spinning the umbrella is therefore merely to move the legs backwards and forwards; and, if that were all, no progression could be effected; but each foot rests on a little wheel or roller, which can only rotate in one direction so that while it catches the ground in its backward stroke it rolls freely over it while it is moving forward, and thus each leg in its turn contributes to the progressive movement of the toy.
Now I have come to the end, and it only remains to me to thank you all for having supported me by your presence in such numbers to-night, and to say to you in the words of Othello:
“It gives me wonder great as my content, To see you here before me.”
