T. The opening connecting the trunk and chest, which is partly concealed by the false back.
U. Panel which is slipt aside to admit the player.
Various pieces of mechanism of wonderful ingenuity have been constructed for the purposes of drawing and writing. One of these, invented by M. Le Droz, the son of the celebrated Droz of Chaux le Fonds, has been described by Mr. Collinson. The figure was the size of life. It held in its hand a metallic style, and when a spring was touched, so as to release a detent, the figure immediately began to draw upon a card of Dutch vellum previously laid under its hand. After the drawing was executed on the first card, the figure rested. Other five cards were then put in, in succession, and upon these it delineated in the same manner different subjects. On the first card it drew “elegant portraits and likenesses of the king and queen facing each other;” and Mr. Collinson remarks, that it was curious to observe with what precision the figure lifted up its pencil in its transition from one point of the drawing to another, without making the slightest mistake.
M. Maillardet has executed an automaton which both writes and draws. The figure of a boy kneeling on one knee holds a pencil in his hand. When the figure begins to work, an attendant dips the pencil in ink, and adjusts the drawing-paper upon a brass tablet. Upon touching a spring, the figure proceeds to write, and when the line is finished, its hand returns to dot and stroke the letters when necessary. In this manner it executes four beautiful pieces of writing in French and English, and three landscapes, all of which occupy about one hour.
One of the most popular pieces of mechanism which we have seen is the magician constructed by M. Maillardet for the purpose of answering certain given questions. A figure dressed like a magician appears seated at the bottom of a wall, holding a wand in one hand, and a book in the other. A number of questions ready prepared are inscribed on oval medallions, and the spectator takes any of these which he chooses, and to which he wishes an answer, and having placed it in a drawer ready to receive it, the drawer shuts with a spring till the answer is returned. The magician then rises from his seat, bows his head, describes circles with his wand, and, consulting the book as if in deep thought, he lifts it towards his face. Having thus appeared to ponder over the proposed question, he raises his wand, and striking with it the wall above his head, two folding-doors fly open, and display an appropriate answer to the question. The doors again close, the magician resumes his original position, and the drawer opens to return the medallion. There are twenty of these medallions, all containing different questions, to which the magician returns the most suitable and striking answers. The medallions are thin plates of brass of an elliptical form, exactly resembling each other. Some of the medallions have a question inscribed on each side, both of which the magician answers in succession. If the drawer is shut without a medallion being put into it, or if a blank medallion, viz., one which contains no question, is put into the drawer, the magician rises, consults his book, shakes his head, and resumes his seat. The folding-doors remain shut, and the drawer is returned empty. If two medallions are put into the drawer together, an answer is returned only to the lower one. When the machinery is wound up, the movements continue about an hour, during which time about fifty questions may be answered. The method by which the different medallions acted upon the machinery, so as to produce the proper answers to the questions which they bore, was of course kept a secret by the inventor, but it was discovered by Mr. Brockedon, who has kindly communicated to me an account of it.
Upon examining the edge of the circular medallions, Mr. Brockedon discovered in all of them, except the blanks, a small hole almost concealed by the milling. This led Mr. Brockedon to examine the receptacle for the medallion in the drawer, and he observed the edge of a pin flush with the edge of the receptacle, whence the pin was protruded by the machine into the holes in the medallion, the depth of the hole regulating the answer. In order to prove this, Mr. B. cut a slip from a cedar pencil small enough to enter easily the holes in the medallion, if he found them to be of different depths. As the blank medallions had no hole, and produced only a shake of the magician’s head, Mr. B. took a medallion with a question, and having plugged the hole with a bit of cedar, he cut it flush, and having placed it in the receptacle, the conjuror shook his head, and thus bore testimony to the truth of Mr. Brockedon’s discovery.
M. Maillardet has constructed various other automata, representing insects and other animals. One of these was a spider entirely made of steel, which exhibited all the movements of the animal. It ran on the surface of a table during three minutes, and to prevent it from running off, its course always tended towards the centre of the table. He constructed likewise a caterpillar, a lizard, a mouse, and a serpent. The serpent crawls about in every direction, opens its mouth, hisses, and darts out its tongue.
Ingenious and beautiful as all these pieces of mechanism are, and surprising as their effects appear even to scientific spectators, the principal object of their inventors was to astonish and amuse the public. We should form an erroneous judgment, however, if we suppose that this was the only result of the ingenuity which they displayed. The passion for automatic exhibitions, which characterized the 18th century, gave rise to the most ingenious mechanical devices, and introduced among the higher orders of artists habits of nice and accurate execution in the formation of the most delicate pieces of machinery. The same combination of the mechanical powers which made the spider crawl, or which waved the tiny rod of the magician, contributed in future years to purposes of higher import. Those wheels and pinions, which almost eluded our senses by their minuteness, re-appeared 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 has served, in the present age, to guide the movements of the tambouring engine. Those mechanical wonders, which in one century enriched only the conjuror 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 civilization of our species. In whatever way, indeed, the power of genius may invent or combine, and to whatever low 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 be at once recognized, and though it may lie long unproductive in the ungenial till of human knowledge, it will some time or other evolve its germ, and yield to mankind its natural and abundant harvest.
Did the limits of so popular a volume as this ought to be permit it, I should have proceeded to give a general description of some of these extraordinary pieces of machinery, the construction and effects of which never fail to strike the spectator with surprise. This, however, would lead me into a field too extensive, and I shall therefore confine myself to a notice of three very remarkable pieces of mechanism which are at present very little known to the general reader, viz., the tambouring machine of Mr. Duncan, the statue-turning machine of Mr. Watt, and the calculating machinery of Mr. Babbage.