We are informed by Aulus Gellius, on the authority of Favorinus, that Archytas of Tarentum, who flourished about four hundred years before Christ, constructed a wooden pigeon that was capable of flying. Favorinus relates that, when it had once alighted, it could not again resume its flight; and Aulus Gellius adds, that it was suspended by balancing, and animated by a concealed aura, or spirit.
Among the earliest pieces of modern mechanism was the curious water-clock presented to Charlemagne by the Kaliph Haroun al Raschid. In the dial-plate there were twelve small windows corresponding with the divisions of the hours. The hours were indicated by the opening of the windows, which let out little metallic balls, which struck the hour by falling upon a brazen bell. The doors continued open till twelve o’clock, when twelve little knights, mounted on horseback, came out at the same instant, and after parading round the dial, shut all the windows and returned to their apartments.[32]
The next automata of which any distinct account has been preserved are those of the celebrated John Muller, Regiomontanus, which have been mentioned by Kircher, Baptista Porta, Gassendi, Lana, and Bishop Wilkins. This philosopher is said to have constructed an artificial eagle, which flew to meet the Emperor Maximilian when he arrived at Nuremberg on the 7th June, 1740. After soaring aloft in the air, the eagle is stated to have met the Emperor at some distance from the city, and to have returned and perched upon the town gate, where it waited his approach. When the Emperor reached the gate, the eagle stretched out its wings, and saluted him by an inclination of its body. Muller is likewise reported to have constructed an iron fly which was put in motion by wheel-work, and which flew about and leapt upon the table. At an entertainment given by this philosopher to some of his familiar friends, the fly flew from his hand, and after performing a considerable round, it returned again to the hand of its master.
The Emperor Charles V., after his abdication of the throne, amused himself in his later years with automata of various kinds. The artist whom he employed was Janellus Turrianus of Cremona. It was his custom after dinner to introduce upon the table figures of armed men and horses. Some of these beat drums, others played upon flutes, while a third set attacked each other with spears. Sometimes he let fly wooden sparrows, which flew back again to their nest. He also exhibited corn-mills so extremely small that they could be concealed in a glove, yet so powerful that they could grind in a day as much corn as would supply eight men with food for a day.
The next piece of mechanism of sufficient interest to merit our attention is that which was made by M. Camus, for the amusement of Louis XIV. when a child. It consisted of a small coach, which was drawn by two horses, and which contained the figure of a lady within, with a footman and page behind. When this machine was placed at the extremity of a table of the proper size, the coachman smacked his whip, and the horses instantly set off, moving their legs in a natural manner, and drawing the coach after them: when the coach reached the opposite edge of the table, it turned sharply at a right angle, and proceeded along the adjacent edge. As soon as it arrived opposite the place where the king sat, it stopped; the page descended and opened the coach-door; the lady alighted, and with a curtsey presented a petition, which she held in her hand to the king. After waiting some time she again curtsied and re-entered the carriage. The page closed the door, and having resumed his place behind, the coachman whipped his horses and drove on. The footman, who had previously alighted, ran after the carriage and jumped up behind into his former place.
Not content with imitating the movements of animals, the mechanical genius of the 17th and 18th centuries ventured to perform by wheels and pinions the functions of vitality. We are informed by M. Lobat, that Gen. Degennes, a French officer who defended the colony of St. Christopher’s against the English forces, constructed a peacock which could walk about as if alive, pick up grains of corn from the ground, digest them as if they had been submitted to the action of the stomach, and afterwards discharged them in an altered form. Degennes is said to have invented various machines of great use in navigation and gunnery, and to have constructed clocks without weights or springs.
The automaton of Degennes probably suggested to M. Vaucanson the idea of constructing his celebrated duck, which excited so much interest throughout Europe, and which was perhaps the most wonderful piece of mechanism that was ever made. Vaucanson’s duck exactly resembled the living animal in size and appearance. It executed accurately all its movements and gestures, it ate and drank with avidity, performed all the quick motions of the head and throat which are peculiar to the living animal, and, like it, it muddled the water which it drank with its bill. It produced also the sound of quacking in the most natural manner. In the anatomical structure of the duck, the artist exhibited the highest skill. Every bone in the real duck had its representative in the automaton, and its wings were anatomically exact. Every cavity, apophysis, and curvature was imitated, and each bone executed its proper movements. When corn was thrown down before it, the duck stretched out its neck to pick it up, it swallowed it, digested it, and discharged it in a digested condition. The process of digestion was effected by chemical solution, and not by trituration, and the food digested in the stomach was conveyed away by tubes to the place of its discharge.
The automata of Vaucanson were imitated by one Du Moulin, a silversmith, who travelled with them through Germany in 1752, and who died at Moscow in 1765. Beckmann informs us that he saw several of them after the machinery had been deranged; but that the artificial duck, which he regarded as the most ingenious, was still able to eat, drink, and move. Its ribs, which were made of wire, were covered with duck’s feathers, and the motion was communicated through the feet of the duck by means of a cylinder and fine chains like that of a watch.
Fig. 66.
