Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1903-08-11

piece BY piece, showing nim all lie
springs ana explaining Q hjm TIE -
ton of t..e Jrain. Pr bablz the in
quieitor understood little VI aotuine
tic matter: ne} }eztfeIess L. an
5eeneed tie fact pabHcly.lhat he dis.
covered no magic and thatrhe mecaan-
i'm was moved entirely by natural
aans.
Three Perfect Automata.
Three of these automatons. whose
perfection exceeded everything Whien
Had ever been known in this class OF
work. are the young musician. the
draughtsman and the writer, young
woman, seated at the harpsiehord
executed several pieces OF music With
dexterity, without any person touch
ing the instrument. The draHghts
man. seated en- stool, made drawings
with pencil, sketched them correct
~. and then shaded them. From time
to time he raised his hand to examine
his work the better, corrected some
defect and blew the dust from the
paper Henri Louis, having gone to
Versailles, exhibited his automatons to
the king The raughtsman. to amaze
ment Of the court sketched the por-
trait of the French king with a laurel
wreath on his head.
,Jaquet-Droz went over to England;
lie placed the draughtSman before the
king, and soon the hands of the auto
naton We're actively at work. but the
surprise of those present was bound
! less when they beheld, not the image
Of the king of France, which they had
expected, but that of the English mon
arch OF course the portraits were
not finished productions. but present
ed a general resemblance.
The draughtsman of JaquetDroz was
not, however, the most remarkable OF
the works created by the ineXhausti-
bic genius of this artist. Let one
Judge from the writer, seated before
an isolated desk, without contact with
any person. He would dip his pen
in the nkstand and write without die
tation, slowly, it is true, but distinctly
and correctly.
| tod 70 MI q %
at the desired distance from the pre-
ceding. When line was finished he
| commenced new one leaving pe-
tween them the necessary space. The
movements of the eyes and OF the arms
and hands were admirably initiated.
| The writer might even be interrupted.
He stopped in the middle of word
if asked and wrote another.
The means used by Jacque-Droz for
securing this result have renamed un-
| known. The courtiers. scientists and
the most skilful mechanicians, have
yainly sought to penetrate the mystery.
II is needless to say that the writer
performed only in the presence OF
Jacouet-Droz J which involves the idea
of some action exercised by this ar
tist. 1t has been supposed that ne
made use of magnet concealed IN his
shoes or clothing This idea was sug-
| pested bv his habit of walking back
and forth and turning sometimes to
one side and sometimes to the other
while the automatOn was writing, thu9
perhaps. being able to attract the
hook toward the wheel with the AID OF
a magnet and cause it to return by the
same force. The lords Of the court
endeayored, by means Of other mag
nets Of great power concealed in their
clothing, to disturb the working OF
the apparatus by their attitudes ana
movements, but in vain The auto
maton wrote with the same accuracy
fbe writer is still in existence II
continues to write, provided the hook
and the wheel are kept in action By
the hand. The motive force used p
the artist is d secret which uniof-
tanately has been buried with him
Scientific American.