The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-29
TALKING MACHINES.

British public, rs a very ingenious all air.
Not that there is much actually new in it;
for in this, as in other matters, there is
nothing new under the sun; but it is honest
in its way; it does the best it can, and it is
what it processes to be.
distinction between the honest and
the deceptive in snch contrivances deserves
to be noted There have been some So
called talking and singing machines, in
which the talking and singing really came
from human lips, under such circumstances
as led the audience to believe that mechan-
ism produced the sounds. We know very
little about Roger Bacon's speaking head;
but there is reason to believe that, if the ma
chine were ever produced at ALL the sounds
emitted came from human lips. A famous
exhibition, called the Invisible Girl was a
deception in which much ingenuity was dis
played. In this machine there was a girl or
lady concerned who did the talking
and singing, and who was invisi-
BILE to the audience; the deception
consisted in leading the visitors to suppose
that she was in a small globe suspended in
mid-air. There we're four upright posts,
united at top by four horizontal rails, like
the framework of a table. Bent wires,
springing up from the posts converged to
an ornamental centre; and from these
wires were suspended a hollow copper
ball, with four trumpet-mouths on four
sides. This was all the visitors saw. Any
person wishing to propose question spoke
1t into one of the mpet-mouths, aud pre-
sently afterwards an appropriate answer came
from all the four mouths. The voice was so
soft that it seemed to come from a very young
and diminutive being indeed-a fairy, an
invisible girl. French and italian were
spoken by the voice as we'll as English;
witty and lively remarks were made as we'll
as questions answered.; and songs were
beautifully sung in silvery tones 1t was
admitted on all hands to be an attractive
exhibition; and as there were means of
verifying the fact that the globe touched
nothing whatever, except four ribbons by
which it was suspended, the surprise felt
was great. The facts of the case were these.
One of the posts was hollow, as were two OF
the rails; and there were openings in the
rails just opposite two of the trumpet
mouths In an adjoining room was lady
seated at a piano-forte; a very small opening
in the partition between the two rooms en-
abled her to see what was going on; while
concealed tube was carried from point near
the level of her ear to the hollow part of the
machine, beneath the floor. Eounds, as we
know, travel very easily through tubes: and
thus the questioning, the answering,
the singing, and the piano-forte play
ing we're transferred from roo n to
room. When a spectator asked question,
speaking at one of the trumpet-mouths, the
back to the opening in the horizontal rail,
which opening was neither seen nor sus-
pected by the audience; it went down the
rail, under the floor, and into the ad dining
apartment, where the lady heard it; and the
sounds in the opposite direction were SINH
larly conveyed. The sound became so altered
in character and intensity by this process
of transmission as really to seem to come
from the hall; and when an answer was
n in
whisper, the impression was very strong
that the answers really came from the BALL
Far less clever than this Invisible Girl was
the so-called Anthropoglossos, exhibited in
London six or eight years ago. There was a
colored bust suspended from the ceiling of a
room, with some machinery inside, which
purported to produce sounds; but the speak
ing and the comic singing really came from
an adjoining apartment, through tubes laid
with very little scientific skill.
But the more interesting contrivauces are
those in which the sounds are really produced
by mechanism of pipes, bellows, keys, vi
brating reeds, etc. Musical instruments
have in some cases been played with surpris-
ing success by such means, involving the ex-
penditure of an almost incredible amount of
time, patience, and ingenuity in devising the
requisite arrangements. Vaucansons flute
player was a wonderful example of this kind.
1t was a life-size figure dressed in the ordi-
nary fashion of his day (about 173O), and
standing on pedestal, both figure and psdes-
tai being full of delicate machinery essential
to the working of the machine. When wound
up with key, the figure played real music
on 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 diff
ferent passages, as wall 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 pro-
per order for producing the several notes.
The machine was constructed to play GER
tain number of tunes, beyond which its
powers did not extend. Soon afterwards the
same clever meehanician produced his auto
maton fageolet-player. The hageolet had
only three holes; and so diverse was the in
tensity 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 shep-
herd, standing on a pedestal, played nearly
twenty minuets and country-dances on a
shepherds pipe held in the left hand, at the
same time playing on a tambour "a kind of
hybrid between q tambourine and q small
drum with a stick held in the right
hand. Maezel's automaton trumpeter, ex-
hibited about sixty years ago, was quite a
triumph of ingenuity A figure, dressed
in the uniform of a trumpeter of
Austrian dragons, when wound up by a
key, played the Australian Cavalry March,
and march and allegro by Weigl, on a