But now a series of even more ingenious operations is performed. Each of the matrices which have just been used must be restored to the tube from which it originally came, and in effecting this the machine displays an almost more than human intelligence. An operator intrusted to per form such a task by hand would first pick out the different sorts, then carefully compare them with the tubes, and finally use dexterity in placing them where they belonged. Not so the machine: as soon as a line is cast it simply withdraws the matrices from their position against the disc and lifts them by automatic carriers to the top of the machine. Here they encounter a sort of endless railroad or belt fitted with hanging loops, which catch them up and travel with them from left to right above the tops of the tubes.
The tops of the matrices are cut in the shape of a V, the inner edges of this V being notched in such a manner that all the matrices of the same character arc alike, and different from those of any other. As the belt moves along, these V's closely hug a stationary bar placed between the loops and fitted with an arrangement of fine ridges, which differ over every tube. These ridges correspond with the notches in the different V's in such a way that when a matrix is brought exactly above the tube to which it belongs, it no longer engages any ridges on the bar, the loop ceases to sustain it, and it falls at once into place, ready to be used again. To guard against possible mishaps, the distributing-bar is connected with wires from a battery, by means of which the premature dropping of a matrix closes an electric circuit and stops the carrier-belt.
The capacity of the machine in the hands of a competent operator is from 300o to Soon ems per hour, and six weeks are generally sufficient for a person of average intelligence to learn to attain this speed.
Mechanical Talking more than a century inventors have directed their ingenuity to the construction of a machine capable of imitating the human voice, notwithstanding the fact that such a machine would serve no practical purpose even if it could be perfected. Wolfgang von Kenipelen, who invented the so-called "automatic chess player," devised a talking head in which wind tubes and vibrating reeds were set in motion by means of a bellows placed in the bust of the figure. The capacity of the machine was limited, but words and sentences were automatically enunciated without the use of keys or the intervention of an operator. Parts of the mechanism imitated the movements and action
of the human mouth—lips, teeth, tongue, etc. A later effort was made by Faber, an ingenious Frenchman, who invented a talking-machine which consisted essentially of three parts: (I) the wind-producing apparatus, simply a bellows; (2) the sound-making arrangement or larynx, a tube so constructed that, within certain limits, a difference of tone could be pro duced; and (3) the articulating system, which included devices for sound ing the vowels and consonants and for producing the nasal sounds. The vowels were sounded by the passage of air through differently-shaped Openings in diaphragms placed successively in the current of air by means of levers actuated by the operator's fingers, and the consonants were produced by pieces whose acticti was analogous to that of the lips, the teeth, and the tongue. A special cavity produced the nasal sounds. Fourteen keys, very ingeniously disposed, put in motion these imitation organs of speech in such a way as to render the necessary intensity in action and variations in sequence of parts for pronouncing syllables. The language of the machine, while monotonous and imperfect, was sufficiently clear to make the words enunciated easily understood.
The Calculating-machine(61.12s, fig. 4) is designed to assist in all kinds of computation where multiplication and division form material parts of the work. This instrument, which is about 7 inches in height and 5Y2 by 13 inches on its base, does its work by untiring mechanism in an exact and automatic manner, and gives its results in plain figures. By its use the labor usually required of the brain is transferred to the hand, and time is saved on most descriptions of work. The machine has the advantage over common logarithms in point of time, ease, and accuracy. It is much easier and quicker to work with natural sines, tangents, etc., and natural numbers, upon this machine, than to use the common logarithmic method.
Simonds' s Machine (pl. 128, fig. 3) has for its object the economical and accurate production, from ductile or malleable metal, of articles of circular, or approximately circular, form, other than simple cylinders. The means resorted to for attaining such results consist in swaging-dies which move in opposite directions, and whose surfaces approach each other and first roll the ductile metal into form and after ward produce by continued rolling a finished surface.