Evening star., 1899-02-04
SOME CURIOUS -AJTONATA.
Duck That Could Not Be Distfnguish-
ed From the Real,

From Lectures pour Tous.
OF all the inventors of mechanical curl
osities, Jacques Vaucanson was certainly
the king. In the ingenuity of his mind he
eQualed, If he did not surpass, the most
skillful of men.
In the first book of the Odes of Horace
we read that Arckytas manufactured a
wooden pigeon, which. actuated by a me-
chanical movement, flew from place to
place. This. however, was nothing as com
pared with the automatic fly manufactured
by John Muller, and which flew around the
table during dinner, and alighted upon The
hand of it's owner and manufacturer, to
the great astonishment of his guests.
Philippe Camus describes an extraordi-
nary automatic group, which was specially
constructed for the amusement of Louis
XIV. 1t was a minute coach to which
were harnessed several horses and which
rolled over the table. Upon starting the
cOachnan cracked his whip, and the horses
began to prance and then became quiet and
started off on a trot. The coach stopped
in front of the king, and the lackey jumped
from his seat, and, opening the door, hand
ed out a handsomely dressed lady, who
walked toward his majesty, saluted him
tremendously, presented petition to him,
and then re-entered the coach. The lackey
closed the door and jumped upon his box
the whip snapped and the horses galloped
off.
Vaucanson did better still. His automatic
duck was, TO connoisseurs, object OF
admirat ton. The bird waddled off in search
of food and picked up and swallowed the
seeds that it met with. These seeds, says
an article in the Geographic Universelle,
passed into the stomach through a series of
triturations that facilitated the introduc-
ton of them into the intespnes and caused
them to accomplish all the phases of di-
geston.
1t was impossible to distinguished this
duck from a living one. 1t Splashed about
in the water and quacked at pleasure
Vaucanson's mechanical flute player also
was a marvel. 1t was a life-size figure
clothed in the fashion of the period, and
upon which it slightly leaned. 1t was capa-
Bile of playing a dozen different airs with
remarkable ease. To effect this result
there was a system of weights that ac-
tuated a bellows placed in the interior of
the automaton and through an invisible
tube forced air to the flute, where it acted
in the usual way upon the stopple of the
opening In order to obtain the modula-
tions and, consequently, complete air,
the fingers of. the automaton We're movable
and closed the holes of the flute hermeti-
cally when at rest, and also rose and re-
placed one another through the traction eX-
erted by wires and cords that were tautened
and relaxed by the play of toothed cyl
inder. -sX
About sixty years ago a jeweler of Bou-
losne constructed a wonderful automatic
prestidigitator II This figure, correctly dress
ed in black, performed various sleight-of-
hand tricks with remarkable dexterity, and
when it was applauded, gracefully saluted
the spectators to the right and left One
of it's tricks was the following: 1t struck a
table several times and made an egg come
out of it. 1t ffhen blew upon the latter
when out of it came a bird that tapped its
wings and sang and aafterward entered the
egg again. This trick finished the exhibi-
ton. =