Bishop Wilkins, in his “Mathematicall Magick,” 1648, observes:—“There have been some inventions also which have been able for the utterance of articulate sounds, as the speaking of certain words. Such are some of the Egyptian idols related to be. Such was the brazen head made by Friar Bacon, and that statue, in the framing of which Albertus Magnus bestowed thirty years, broken by Aquinas, who came to see it, purposely that he might boast, how in one minute he had ruined the labour of so many years.” Proceeding further to consider such inventions, he says, “Walchius thinks it possible entirely to preserve the voice, or any words spoken, in a hollow trunk, or pipe.”—P. 176, 177.
Dr. W. Hooper, in the second volume of his “Rational Recreations,” has an article on “The Conversive Statue,” requiring the employment of two concave mirrors, a statue, and an interlocutor. In regard to this arrangement, it is remarked:—“This recreation appears to be taken from the Century of Inventions of the Marquis of Worcester; one of those men of sublime genius, who are able to perform actions infinitely superior to the capacity, or even the comprehension, of the mere scholar or man of business; and though his designs, at the time they were published, were treated with ridicule and neglect, by the great and little vulgar, who, judging by their own abilities, are ever ready to condemn what they cannot comprehend, yet they are now known to be generally, if not universally, practicable.”—Edit. 1794, pp. 220–223.
The “Athenæum” of the 6th December, 1862, announced that—“A very remarkable talking automaton is exciting the curiosity of the Parisians. It has been constructed by M. Faber, late Professor of Mathematics at a German university, and is stated by our contemporary, ‘Cosmos,’ to be by far the most successful effort that has been yet made to imitate the human voice. The figure, which is that of a woman, is exhibited on the Boulevard Magenta.”
We may here add the following comment on—
[A Stamping Engine.] “An engine, without ye least noyse, knock, or use of fyre, to coyne and stamp 100 lb. in an houre, by one man.”—See Harleian MS. No. 2428.
In “Humane Industry,” published 1661, at page 36, it is observed, that, “At the Mint of Segovia, in Spain, an engine that moves by water, distendeth an ingot of gold.”
The Coining Mill, or Press, was first introduced from France into England during Elizabeth’s reign, but was shortly after abandoned for the old hammer process of stamping with two dies. The invention of the mill is ascribed to an engraver, who used it in 1553 for coining the French king’s counters. The new process of coining was completely established in France in 1645, but not in England until 1662, the year before the “Century” was published, which sufficiently accounts for its author not printing the present article.
According to the Rev. Rogers Ruding, in his “Annals of the Coinage,” 1840, no improvement was attempted for upwards of a century, the modern coining-mill having been invented by Mr. Boulton, in 1788.
89.
White Silk knotted in the fingers[8] of a Pair of white Gloves, and so contrived without suspicion, that playing at Primero at Cards, one may without clogging his memory keep reckoning of all Sixes, Sevens and Aces which he hath discarded.[9]