Letters on Natural Magic; Addressed to Sir Walter Scott, Bart.

by David Brewster

The singing-bird of M. Maillardet, which he exhibited in Edinburgh many years ago, is still more wonderful.[20] An oval box, about three inches long, was set upon the table, and in an instant the lid flew up, and a bird of the size of the humming-bird, and of the most beautiful plumage, started from its nest. After fluttering its wings, it opened its bill and performed four different kinds of the most beautiful warbling. It then darted down into its nest, and the lid closed upon it. The moving power in this piece of mechanism is said to have been springs which continued their action only four minutes. As there was no room within so small a figure for accommodating pipes to produce the great variety of notes which were warbled, the artist used only one tube, and produced all the variety of sounds by shortening and lengthening it with a moveable piston.

Ingenious as these pieces of mechanism are, they sink into insignificance when compared with the machinery of M. Vaucanson, which had previously astonished all Europe. His two principal automata were the flute-player, and the pipe and tabor-player. The flute-player was completed in 1736, and wherever it was exhibited it produced the greatest sensation. When it came to Paris it was received with great suspicion. The French savants recollected the story of M. Raisin, the organist of Troyes, who exhibited an automaton player upon the harpsichord, which astonished the French court by the variety of its powers. The curiosity of the king could not be restrained, and in consequence of his insisting upon examining the mechanism, there was found in the figure a pretty little musician five years of age. It was natural, therefore, that a similar piece of mechanism should be received with some distrust; but this feeling was soon removed by M. Vaucanson, who exhibited and explained to a committee of the Academy of Sciences the whole of the mechanism. This learned body was astonished at the ingenuity which it displayed; and they did not hesitate to state, that the machinery employed for producing the sounds of the flute performed in the most exact manner the very operations of the most expert flute-player, and that the artist had imitated the effects produced, and the means employed by nature, with an accuracy which exceeded all expectation. In 1738, M. Vaucanson published a memoir, approved of by the Academy, in which he gave a full description of the machinery employed, and of the principles of its construction. Following this memoir, I shall therefore attempt to give as popular a description of the automaton as can be done without lengthened details and numerous figures.

The body of the flute-player was about 5½ feet high, and was placed upon a piece of rock, surrounding a square pedestal 4½ feet high by 3½ feet wide. When the panel which formed the front of the pedestal was opened, there was seen on the right a clock movement, which, by the aid of several wheels, gave a rotatory motion to a steel axis about 2½ feet long, having cranks at six equidistant points of its length, but lying in different directions. To each crank was attached a cord, which descended and was fixed by its other end to the upper board of a pair of bellows, 2½ feet long and 6 inches wide. Six pair of bellows arranged along the bottom of the pedestal were then wrought, or made to blow in succession, by turning the steel axis.

At the upper face of the pedestal, and upon each pair of bellows is a double pulley, one of whose rims is 3 inches in diameter, and the other 1½. The cord which proceeds from the crank coils round the smaller of these pulleys, and that which is fixed to the upper board of the bellows goes round the larger pulley. By this means the upper board of the bellows is made to rise higher than if the cords went directly from them to the cranks.

Round the larger rims of three of these pulleys, viz. those on the right hand, there are coiled three cords, which, by means of several smaller pulleys, terminate in the upper boards of other three pair of bellows placed on the top of the box.

The tension of each cord when it begins to raise the board of the bellows to which it is attached, gives motion to a lever placed above it between the axis and the double pulley in the middle and lower region of the box. The other end of this lever keeps open the valve in the lower board of the bellows, and allows the air to enter freely, while the upper board is rising to increase the capacity of the bellows. By this means there is not only power gained, in so far as the air gains easier admission through the valve, but the fluttering noise produced by the action of the air upon the valves is entirely avoided, and the nine pair of bellows are wrought with great ease, and without any concussion or noise.

These nine bellows discharge their wind into three different and separate tubes. Each tube receives the wind of three bellows, the upper boards of one of the three pair being loaded with a weight of four pounds, those of the second three pair with a weight of two pounds, and those of the other three pair with no weight at all. These three tubes ascended through the body of the figure and terminated in three small reservoirs placed in its trunk. These reservoirs were thus united into one, which, ascending into the throat, formed by its enlargement the cavity of the mouth terminated by two small lips, which rested upon the whole of the flute. These lips had the power of opening more or less, and by a particular mechanism, they could advance or recede from the hole in the flute. Within the cavity of the mouth there is a small moveable tongue for opening and shutting the passage for the wind through the lips of the figure.

The motions of the fingers, lips, and tongue of the figure were produced by means of a revolving cylinder, thirty inches long and twenty-one in diameter. By means of pegs and brass staples fixed in fifteen different divisions in its circumference, fifteen different levers, similar to those in a barrel organ, were raised and depressed. Seven of these regulated the motions of the seven fingers for stopping the holes of the flute, which they did by means of steel chains rising through the body, and directed by pulleys to the shoulder, elbow, and fingers. Other three of the levers communicating with the valves of the three reservoirs, regulated the ingress of the air, so as to produce a stronger or a weaker tone. Another lever opened the lips so as to give a free passage to the air, and another contracted them for the opposite purpose. A third lever drew them backwards from the orifice of the flute, and a fourth pushed them forward. The remaining lever enabled the tongue to stop up the orifice of the flute.

Such is a very brief view of the general mechanism by which the requisite motions of the flute-player were produced. The airs which it played were probably equal to those executed by a living performer, and its construction, as well as its performances, continued for many years to delight and astonish the philosophers and musicians of Europe.

Encouraged by the success of this machine, M. Vaucanson exhibited in 1741 other automata, which were equally, if not more, admired. One of these was the automaton duck, which performed all the motions of that animal, and not only ate its food, but digested it;[21] and the other was his pipe and tabor-player, a piece of mechanism which required all the resources of his fertile genius. Having begun this machine before he was aware of its peculiar difficulties, he was often about to abandon it in despair, but his patience and his ingenuity combined, enabled him not only to surmount every difficulty, but to construct an automaton which performed complete airs, and greatly excelled the most esteemed performers on the pipe and tabor.