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

figures played eighteen duets, which must
have required o vast amount of interior
mechanism.
Another class of these ingenious contri-
vances comprises pieces of mechanism which
initiate the cry of certain animals and the
song of birds. This has been rather a
favorite 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, dove, and cock;
the hours were announced by the Growing
of the clock, thrice repeated, after pre-
liminary Tapping of wings; and when this
growing was done the dove descended, and
the angels came forth from a recess and
played hymn on a set of bells. We speak
of this clock in the past tense, not know
ing whether Lyons still possesses such a
curiosity. The marvellous clock in the
beautiful cathedral of Strasburg had at
one time a complication of mechanism still
more elaborate; bells, arranged in parti-
cular position, played three different tunes
at three, seven, and eleven o'clock every
day, and thanksgiving at Christmas, Easter,
and Whitsuntide; when this was finished,
cock, which stood on the top of the tower,
stretched out his neck shook his comb,
clapped his wings twice, and crowed twice.
The bombardment may perchance have ruined
the tower, but at any rate the may intricacies
of the clock have become unmanageable long
long ago. Vaucanson's duck constructed a
hundred and thirty years ago, quacked like a
real duck Among the curiosities preserved at
Versailles in the time of Louis the Fourteenth
was q clock made by Martinot At the
completion of every hour two cocks crowed
alternately, and clapped their wings; after
which two little doors opened, two figures
appeared bearing two cymbols or gongs, and
two sentinels beat on the cymbals with clubs.
Maillardet constructed an oval box about
three inches in length, from which, when the
lid was opened, tiny bird flew out, fiuttered
its wings, opened its bill with tremulous
motion, warbled its little song and then shut
itself down again in its nest. Those who re-
member the little automaton called the Swiss
nightingale, at the international Exhibition
eight years ago, will be prepared to under
stand that Maillardet has had many imitators.
Some years ago there was an exhibition in
London comprising figures of child, a mon
key, goat, and hare. The child said
Spa" and MA" and the goat bleated In
other automata we may sometimes meet with
bleating sheep; and there was one in which
dog barked whenever fruit in a basket was
touched by an intruder.
success, initiate human speech, are the most
difficult to construct, so many are the agen-
cies engaged in uttering eveh single word
lungs, larynx, tongue, palate, teeth, lips
SO many are the infections and variations of
tone and articulation, that the mechanician
finds his ingenuity taxed to the utter
most to initiate them. The speaking DOLL
which gives forth it's melancholy and Woe
begone ''Papa!" and "Mauma - is won
lax 30 all fl,a III
very earnestly that such dolls are too expen-
sive to be freely purchased; but it is never
theless poor affair, albeit there has been
much care and thought bestowed in devising
the kind sof vibrating reed to be used.
About ninety years ago, a pamphlet ap-
peared concerning two large brazen heads
that were constructed by the Able Mical
to effect something in the talking way.
What was really done is rather doubtful
but we are told that entire phrases were
pronounced, that the sounds we're "sur-
humaine;" that there were two cylinders,
one of which could produce determinate
phrases, with proper intervals and prosody,
while the other could produce all the sounds
of the French language, analysed and re-
duced to the smallest number. There were
people uncharitable enough to believe that
the speaking was managed by a living person
in an adjoining apartment, as in some other
information is too slight to enable us to
Judge on this point Kratzenstein, a few
years later, made experiments on a series of
tubes and vibrating reeds, which, by the aid
Of bellows, enabled him to produce or initiate
the sounds of the vowels; but he appears to
have made no attempt with the much more
difficult sounds of consonants.
Wolfgang Won Kempelen, inventor of the
far-famed automaton chess-player, con
structed a talking figure which cost him a
large amount of thought, time, and inventive
ingenuity. First he made experiments with
tubes and vibrating reeds, which enabled
him to initiate the sound of the continental
"a" like our "ah;" then, with tube and a
hollow oval box hinged like the jaws, he pro-
duced the sounds of ''a," so" "ou, and an
imperfect "e;" then he succeeded with the
consonants ''p, ''m, " and 81, and afterwards
a few others; but there were some conso-
nants or sounds which he never succeeded in
initiating. Having combined the results of his
researches, he constructed a head which con-
tanned the requisite wind-tubes and vibrating
reeds, and a bust provided with some
kind of bellows. Thus armed, his automaton
could pronounce the words "opera, 'astro-
nomy," ''Constantinople," "vous etes mon
amie," ''je vous aime de tout mon coeur,
''Leopoldus secundus," aud "Romanum i'm
perator semper Augustus. These words were
spoken when the machine was wound up,
without any player being required to press
upon keys and pedals. Tubes to initiate
nostrils produced ''m" and ''n;" a funnel and
q reed changed IS" into ''z, "sch, and 81, y
and there were various pieces of mechanism
to initiate more or less successfully the
movements and action of mouth, lips, teeth,
tongue, palate, glottis, lungs, etc. Alto
gether it was what the chess-player was not
III.