The weekly herald. [volume] (Cleveland, Tenn.) 1876-1888, 1877-10-25
The Automaton Fluls.plarer.

pleted his famous flute-player. IL pro-
dueed a great sensation wherever IL was
exhibited. The French Swans received
this autOmaton with great suspicion,
evidently fearing that a living per-
former was concealed within the figure.
V%aucansOn Don ~disabused them Of this
; notion, as he exhibited and explained
the whole Of the mechanism 10 a COM
mlttee Of the ParisAcademy o Sciences.
This learned body, under whose aus
pices the inventor published an account
Of his construction In 1888, became en-
thusiastic over the ingenuity displayed
In this mechanism, and even went so
far as TO say that ''the machinery en-
ployed for producing the sounds of the
flute performed In the most eXact man
ner the very operation Of the most ex-
pert flute-player, and that the mechani-
clan had initiated the effects produced
aud the means employed by nature
with an accuracy exceeding all expec-
~tation." The body of the lute-player
was about five and one-half feet high,
and was placed on a pedestal four and
One-half feet high by three and one
half feet wide. Nine pairs Of bellows,
which were made to blow in succession
by the rotation of steel axis. by means
of clock work, supplied the necessary
wind. Three tubes ascending through
the body of the figure, and terminated
in three small reservoirs in the trunk.
Three pairs of bellows discharged their
wind into each of these tubes. The
reservoirs became united so that the
whole volume of wind rushed up the
throat and into the mouth, which was
terminated by two small lips. In the
cavity of the mouth there was a small,
movable tongue, for preventing and
permitting the wind to pass through
the lips, which had the power of OPEN
Ing more or less, and of advancing or
%receding from the hole of the flute.
''The motion of the fingers, lips and
tongue of the figure were produced by
means of a revolving cylinder, thirty
inches long and twenty-one inches in
diameter. By means of pegs and sta
Piles fixed in fifteen different divisions
in its circumference, fifteen different
levers, similar to those in a barrel or
gan, were raised and depressed. Seven
Of these regulated the motions of the
seven fingers for stopping the holes of
the flute, which they did by means of
steel chains rising through the body,
and directed by pulleys to the shoulder,
elbow and fingers. Other three of the
levers communicating with the valves
of the three reservoirs regulated the
ingress of the air, so as to produce a
stronger or a weaker tone. Another
lever opened the lips, so as to give a
free passage to the air, and another con-
tracted them for the opposite purpose.
A third leverdrew them backward from
the orifice of the flute, and a fourth
pushed them forward. The remaining
leaver enabled the tongue to stop up the
Oriflce of the flute"
Vaucanson in his flute-player con-
structed a machine that could play GER
tain airs as well as a living performer.
In the OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES" con-
structed a few years later, the automa-
tion not only performed complete airs,
but In rendering them greatly excelled
the most esteemed living performers on
those Instruments. The great mechani-
clan began its construction with but a
dim perception of. the difficulties which
he would have to surmount in achieving
success, and was often about to abandon
his self-appointed task in despair. But
perseverance in this case, as in so many
others, had its due reward. The figure
of the OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES" stands
on a pedestal, and is dressed like a dane
ing shepherd. "He holds in one hand
a flageolet, capable of performing about
twenty airs, and in the other a stick
with which to beat the tambourine as
an accompaniment. The flageOlet has
only three holes, and the variety of its
tones depends principally on a proper
variation of the force of the wind and
on the different degrees in which the
o%riflces are covered. These variations
In the force of the wind had to be given
with a rapidity which the ear can
scarcely follow, and the articulation of
the tongue was required for the quick
est notes, otherwise the effect was far
from agreeable. As the human tongue
is not capable of giving the requisite ar
ticulation to a rapid succession of notes,
and generally slurs over one-half of
them, the antomaton was thus able to
excel the best performers, as it played
complete airs with the articulations of
the tongue at every note" No descrip-
ton of the machinery by which the
movements Of the ''pipe-and-tabor-
player" were produced was published at
the time, but there is little question
that 1t was similar to that of the flute
player.-Appletons' Journal.
Fishing Mt the Thousand Islands,