the so-called Anthropoglossos, exhibited in
London six or eight years ago. There
was a coloured bust suspended from the
ceiling of a room, with some machinery
inside, which purported to produce sounds;
but the speaking and the comic singing
really came from an adjoining apartment,
through tubes laid with very little scientific
skill.

But the more interesting contrivances
are those in which the sounds are really
produced by a mechanism of pipes, bellows,
keys, vibrating reeds, etc. Musical instruments
have in some cases been played with
surprising success by such means, involving
the expenditure of an almost incredible
amount of time, patience, and ingenuity in
devising the requisite arrangements.
Vaucanson's flute-player was a wonderful
example of this kind. It was a life-size
figure, dressed in the ordinary fashion of
his day (about 1730), and standing on a
pedestal; both figure and pedestal being
full of delicate machinery, essential to the
working of the machine. When wound up
with a key, the figure played real music on
a real flute. Air was projected from the
mouth to the embouchure or mouth-hole of
the flute; and the force of the current was
varied to suit the loudness or softness of
different passages, as well as the different
pitch of their octaves, the opening between
the lips being varied to assist in producing
the desired effects. The fingers, made of
some elastic material, stopped the holes in
the proper order for producing the several
notes. The machine was constructed to
play a certain number of tunes, beyond
which its powers did not extend. Soon
afterwards the same clever mechanician
produced his automaton flageolet-player.
The flageolet had only three holes; and so
diverse was the intensity of wind required
to produce all the notes of a tune with
such limited means, that the pressure varied
from one ounce for the lowest note up to
fifty-six pounds for the highest. Another
of his productions was his automaton pipe
and tambour-player; the figure of a shepherd,
standing on a pedestal, played nearly
twenty minuets and country-dances on a
shepherd's pipe held in the left hand, at
the same time playing on a tambour (a
kind of hybrid between a tambourine and
a small drum) with a stick held in the
right hand. Maelzel's automaton trumpeter,
exhibited about sixty years ago, was
quite a triumph of ingenuity. "A figure,
dressed in the uniform of a trumpeter of
Austrian dragoons, when wound up by a
key, played the Austrian Cavalry March,
and a march and allegro by Weigl, on a
trumpet, and was accompanied by an
orchestra, the sounds of the trumpet being
admirably produced. Then, his dress being
changed to that of a French trumpeter of
the Guard, the figure played the French
Cavalry March, all the signals, a march by
Dussek, and an allegro by Pleyel. When
we consider the numerous modifications of
pressure with which the lips of a trumpeter
touch the small end of the trumpet, the
production of such results by machinery is
certainly surprising. Soon after Maelzel's
time, Maillardet produced an automaton
pianoforte-player. The figure of a lady,
seated at a pianoforte, played no less
than eighteen tunes, keeping on for an
hour when once wound up; the machinery
was laid open at intervals in such a way
as to show that it was really mechanism
that played. The white keys or natural
notes were pressed with the fingers in
the usual way, but the flats and sharps
were produced by pressing on pedals
with the feet. The inventor succeeded in
making this lady more graceful in her
attitude and movements than is generally
the case with automata. Somewhere about
1820 there was an exhibition of two
automaton flute-players in London; the two
figures played eighteen duets, which must
have required a vast amount of interior
mechanism.

Another class of these ingenious contrivances
comprises pieces of mechanism
which imitate the cry of certain animals and
the song of birds. This has been rather a
favourite problem with clockmakers. The
cathedral clock at Lyons, made by Lippius
de Basle, and repaired by Nourisson in the
seventeenth century, had a series of dial
plates on which the time of the year, the
month, the week, the day, the hour, the
minute was shown. Besides these there
were figures of angels, a dove, and a cock;
the hours were announced by the crowing
of the cock, thrice repeated, after a
preliminary flapping of wings; and when this
crowing was done the dove descended, and
the angels came forth from a recess and
played a hymn on a set of bells. We speak
of this clock in the past tense, not knowing
whether Lyons still possesses such a
curiosity. The marvellous clock in the
beautiful cathedral of Strasbourg had at
one time a complication of mechanism still
more elaborate; bells, arranged in a particular
position, played three different tunes
at three, seven, and eleven o'clock every