AUTOMATON, derived from two Greek words, meaning self-moved, is a name gene rally applied to all machines which are so constructed as to imitate any actions of men or animals.
The pigeon of Archytas, the clock of Char lemagne, the automaton made by Albertus Magnus to open his door when any one knocked, the speaking head of Roger Bacon, and the fly of Regiomontanus, are early ex amples of such machinery, respecting which, however, we have too little information to afford a correct judgment concerning them. In more recent times we read a marvellous account of an automaton group constructed by M. Camus for the amusement of Louis XIV., consisting of a carriage and horses, with a lady who alighted to present a petition ; and also, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences' for 1729, of a set of actors repre senting a pantomime in five acts. Less mar vellous, though highly ingenious, was the automaton flute-player of Vaucanson, exhi bited at Paris in 1738. The same ingenious person subsequently produced a figure which played the flageolet and tambourine ; and a luck, which not only imitated the motions and sounds of a real duck, hut swallowed food, and ligested it by means of chemical substances n the stomach. More recently M. Maelzel exhibited at Vienna an automaton trumpeter ; end automata have been made to write, to haw, and to play on the piano-forte. The eutomaton chess-player is now known to have eeen worked by a person concealed inside the figure and its table or pedestal, which suppo ;Alma, however, does not deprive its maker of he credit of great ingenuity in the mechanism which the hands were set in motion. The passion for making automata has not let quite passed away. A recent example was 1Ir. Faber's Euphonia. It consisted of a iraped bust and waxen-faced figure, which trticulated language with a certain degree of ntelligihility. The sounds were produced by triking on sixteen keys. A small pair of bel ows was worked with the nozzle in the back cart of the head of the figure; and in the lead were various arrangements of India ubber and other materials, calculated to yield 6 particular sound in each part or section. Then the exhibitor wished to produce a sen ence or word, he first mentally divided it nto as many parts as there are actually (Hs Met sounds—not necessarily coinciding with the syllables or the single letters ; since the various phonographic systems far more correctly represent distinct sounds. Ha ving determined the first word, the operator pressed his finger on a particular key, which admitted a blast of air to a particular com partment, in which the mechanism was of the kind to produce the sound required. Other keys were similarly pressed, until all the required sounds of the word or sentence were produced. The sounds were near enough to those of the human voice to convey the meaning intended, but they had an unpleasant effect to the ear. By a modification of the
action, whispering was imitated.
A remarkable machine was the Automaton Latin Versifier, introduced in 1845, by Mr. John Clark of Bridgewater, after a labour of thirteen years. At the first thought such an invention seems inexplicable, owing to the mental character of the process ; but a little enquiry shews that it is only a system of permutations, such as a machine can easily be made to produce. The specimens given in the Athemeum ' and other public journals at the time, are all Latin hexameters, and moreover have all the same grammatical for mula and scansion, in respect to dactyls and spondees. Tho following nine specimens are given, each complete in itself, as an hexame tric line, but having no connexion with the others.
1. Honida sponsa reis promittunt tempera densa.
2. Sontia tela bonis causabunt agmina crebra.
3. Bellica vote modis promulgant crimina fuse a.
4. Aspera pile patet depromunt prnlia quiedam.
5. Effera sponsa. Sere confirmant vincula nequam.
6. Barbara tela reis pnemonstrant nubila dura.
7. Horrida vote bonis progignunt jurgia crebra.
8. Sontia modis prositant somnia fusca.
D. Trucida regna quidem conquirunt opera cant.
The exterior of the machine which com poses these lines resembles in size and shape a small bureau book-case; in the frontispiece of which through an aperture, the verses ap pear in st-ccession as they are composed. Mr. Clark, in a communication to the 'Athenaeum' (No. 923) makes the following observations on his machine, which he calls the Eureka: —" The machine is neither more nor less than a practical illustration of the law of eve lution The machine contains letters in alphabetical arrangement ; out of these, through the medium of numbers, ren dered tangible by being expressed by inden tures on wheel-work, the instrument selects such as are requisite to form the verse con ceived : the components of words suited to form hexameters being alone previously calculated, the harmonious combination of which will be found to be practicably interminable.' Mr. A. J. Cooley, in the same journal, pointed out the existence of a forgotten pam phlet, a century and a half old, in which the author showed how, from a table given, a per son might produce millions of hexameter lines. But these were produced by accumu lations of words ; whereas Mr. Clark's machine, if we rightly understand his description, ac tually builds up the lines letter by letter.
It is matter of regret that so much ingenuity should be expended in the production of use less results. There are, however, many ma chines—for calculating, numbering, register ing, stamping, paging, &c.—which will be described in various parts of this work, and which illustrate the application of automatic action to useful purposes.