Part 82
The performances of Vaucanson were imitated, and even exceeded, by M. de Kempelin, of Presburg, in Hungary. The androides constructed by this gentleman in 1769, was capable of playing at chess. It was first brought over to England in 1783, and has often been exhibited since that period. It is thus described: The figure is as large as life, in a Turkish dress, seated behind a table, with doors three and a half feet long, two deep, and two and a half high. The chair on which it sits is fixed to the table, which is made to run on four wheels. It leans its right arm on the table, and in its left hand holds a pipe; with this hand it plays after the pipe is removed. A chess-board of eighteen inches is fixed before it. The table, or rather chest, contains wheels, levers, cylinders, and other pieces of mechanism, all of which are publicly displayed. The vestments of the figure were then lifted over its head, and the body was seen full of similar wheels. There is a little door in its thigh, which is likewise opened: and with this, and the table also open, and the figure uncovered, the whole is wheeled about the room. The doors are then shut, and the automaton is ready to play; but it always takes the first move. At every motion the wheels are heard; the image moves its head, and looks over every part of the chess-board. When it checks the queen, it shakes its head twice; and thrice in giving check to the king. It likewise shakes its head when a false move is made, replaces the piece, and makes its own move, by which means the adversary loses one. M. de Kempelin exhibited his automaton at Petersburg, Vienna, Paris, and London, before thousands, many of whom were mathematicians, and chess players, and yet the secret by which he governed the motion of its arm was never discovered. He valued himself upon the construction of a mechanism, by which the arm could perform ten or twelve moves. It then needed to be wound up like a watch, after which it was capable of continuing the same number of motions. This automaton could not play unless M. de Kempelin, or his assistant, was near it to direct its movements. A small square box was frequently consulted by the exhibiter during the game, and in this consisted the secret, which the inventor declared he could communicate in a moment. Any person who could beat M. de Kempelin at chess, was sure of conquering the automaton.
EXTRAORDINARY PIECES OF CLOCK-WORK.--Amongst the modern clocks, those at Strasburg and Lyons are very eminent for the richness and variety of their furniture, and for their motions and figures. In the former, a cock claps his wings, and proclaims the hour, and an angel opens a door, and salutes the Virgin; while the Holy Spirit descends on her, &c. In the latter, two horsemen encounter, and beat the hour on each other; a door opens, and there appears on the theatre the Virgin, with Jesus Christ in her arms; the Magi, with their retinue, marching in order, and presenting their gifts; two trumpeters sounding all the while to proclaim the procession.
These, however, are excelled by two which were lately made by English artists, and sent as a present from the East India Company to the Emperor of China. These clocks are in the form of chariots, in which are placed, in a fine attitude, a lady, leaning her right hand upon a part of the chariot, under which is a clock of curious workmanship, little larger than a shilling, that strikes and repeats, and goes eight days. Upon her finger sits a bird finely modelled, and set with diamonds and rubies, with its wings expanded in a flying posture, and it actually flutters for a considerable time on touching a diamond button below it; the body of the bird (which contains part of the wheels that in a manner give life to it) is not the bigness of the 16th part of an inch. The lady holds in her left hand a gold tube not much thicker than a large pin, on the top of which is a small round box, to which a circular ornament, set with diamonds not larger than a sixpence, is fixed, which goes round nearly three hours in a constant regular motion. Over the lady's head, supported by a small fluted pillar not bigger than a quill, are two umbrellas, under the largest of which a bell is fixed, at a considerable distance from the clock, and seems to have no connection with it; but from which a communication is secretly conveyed to a hammer that regularly strikes the hour, and repeats the same to the clock below. At the feet of the lady is a golden dog; before which, from the point of the chariot, are two birds fixed on spiral springs, the wings and feathers of which are set with stones of various colours, and appear as if flying away with the chariot, which, from another secret motion, is continued to run in a straight, circular, or any other direction; while a boy that lays hold of the chariot behind, seems also to push it forward. Above the umbrella are flowers and ornaments of precious stones; and it terminates with a flying dragon set in the same manner. The whole is of gold, most curiously executed, and embellished with rubies and pearls.
HEIDELBERG CLOCK.--At Heidelberg, in Germany, upon the town-house, was a clock with divers motions; and when the clock struck, the figure of an old man pulled off his hat, a cock crowed, and clapped his wings, soldiers fought with one another, &c.: but this curious piece of workmanship, with the castle and town, were burnt by the French, who committed at the same time the most inhuman barbarities upon the people, when they took those garrisons, in the year 1693.
STRASBURG CLOCK.--At Strasburg, there is a clock, of all others the most famous, invented by Conradus Dasipodius, in the year 1573. Before the clock stands a globe on the ground, shewing the motions of the heavenly bodies. The heavens are carried about by the first mover, in twenty-four hours; Saturn, by his proper motion, is carried about in thirty years; Jupiter in twelve, Mars in two, the Sun, Mercury, and Venus, in one year; and the Moon in one month. In the clock itself there are two tables on the right and left hand, shewing the eclipses of the Sun and Moon from the year 1573, to the year 1624. The third table in the middle is divided into three parts. In the first part, the statue of Apollo and Diana shews the course of the year, and the day thereof, being carried about in one year; the second part shews the year of our Lord, and the equinoctial days, the hours of each day, the minutes of each hour, Easter-day, and all other feasts, and the Dominical Letter. The third part has the geographical description of all Germany, and particularly of Strasburg, with the names of the inventor, and of all the workmen. In the middle frame of the clock is an astrolabe, shewing the sign in which each planet is every day, and there are the statues of the seven planets, upon a round piece of iron, lying flat; so that every day the statue of the planet that rules the day comes forth, the rest being hid within the frames, till they come out by course at their day, as the sun upon Sunday, and so for all the week. And there is also a terrestrial globe, which shews the quarter, the half hour, and the minutes. There is also the skull of a dead man, and statues of two boys, one of whom turns the hour-glass when the clock has struck, the other puts forth the rod in his hand at each stroke of the clock. Moreover, there are the statues of the Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, and many observations of the moon.
In the upper part of the clock are four old men's statues, which strike the quarters of the hour; the statue of Death comes out at each quarter to strike, but is driven back by the statue of Christ, with a spear in his hand, for three-quarters; but in the fourth quarter, that of Christ goes back, and that of Death strikes the hour, with a bone in his hand, and then the chimes sound. On the top of the clock is an image of a cock, which twice in the day cries aloud, and claps his wings. Besides, this clock is decked with many rare pictures: and being on the inside of the church, carries another frame to the outside of the wall, wherein the hours of the sun, the courses of the moon, the length of the day, and such other things, are set out with great art.
CLEPSYDRA--is a water-clock, or instrument to measure time by the fall of a certain quantity of water, and is constructed on the following principles.--Suppose a cylindrical vessel, whose charge of water flows out in twelve hours, were required to be divided into parts, to be discharged each hour. 1. As the part of time is to the whole time, Twelve, so is the same time Twelve to a fourth proportional Hundred-and-forty-four. Divide the altitude of the vessel into one hundred and forty-four equal parts: here the last will fall to the last hour; the three next above, to the last part but one; the five next, to the tenth hour; lastly, the twenty-three last to the first hour. For since the times increase in the series of the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, &c. and the altitudes, if the numeration be in a retrograde order from the twelfth hour, increase in the series of the unequal numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, &c. the altitudes computed from the twelfth hour will be as the squares of the times 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, &c. Therefore the squares of the whole time, one hundred and forty-four, comprehend all the parts of the altitude of the vessel to be emptied. But a third proportional to 1 and 12, is the square of twelve, and consequently it is the number of equal parts in which the altitude is to be distributed, according to the series of the unequal numbers, through the equal interval of hours.
There were many kinds of clepsydræ among the ancients; but they all had this in common, that the water ran generally through a narrow passage, from one vessel to another, and in the lower was a piece of cork, or light wood, which, as the vessel filled, rose up by degrees, and shewed the hour.
We shall in the next place make a few remarks on the INVENTION OF WATCHES.--The invention of spring or pocket watches belongs to the 17th century. It is true, we find mention made of a watch presented to Charles V. in the history of that prince: but this, in all probability, was no more than a kind of clock to be set on a table, some resemblance whereof we have still remaining in the ancient pieces made before the year 1670. There was also a story of a watch having been discovered in Scotland, belonging to King Robert Bruce; but this we believe has turned out altogether erroneous. The glory of this very useful invention lies between Dr. Hooke and M. Huygens; but to which of them it properly belongs, has been greatly disputed; the English ascribing it to the former, and the French, Dutch, &c. to the latter. Mr. Derham, in his Artificial Clockmaker, says, roundly, that Dr. Hooke was the inventor; and adds, that he contrived various ways of regulation. One way was, with a loadstone; another with a tender straight spring, one end whereof played backwards and forwards with the balance, so that the balance was to the spring as the bob to a pendulum, and the spring as the rod thereof. A third method was, with two balances, of which there were divers sorts; some having a spiral spring to the balance for a regulator, and others not. But the way that prevailed, and which still continues to prevail, was, with one balance, and one spring running round the upper part of the verge; though this has a disadvantage, from which those with two springs, &c. were free, since a sudden jerk, or confused shake, will alter its vibrations, and disturb its motion.
The time of these inventions was about the year 1658; as appears, among other evidences, from an inscription on one of the double-balance watches presented to King Charles II. viz. "Rob. Hooke _inven._ 1658. T. Tompion _fecit_, 1675." The invention presently got into reputation, both at home and abroad: and two of them were sent for by the dauphin of France. Soon after this, M. Huygens' watch with a spiral spring got abroad, and made a great noise in England, as if the longitude could be found by it. It is certain, however, that his invention was later than the year 1673, when his book "_De Horol. Oscillat._" was published; wherein he has not one word of this, though he has of several other contrivances in the same way.
One of these the Lord Brouncker sent for out of France, where M. Huygens had got a patent for them. This watch agreed with Dr. Hooke's, in the application of the spring to the balance; only M. Huygens' had a long spiral spring, and the pulses and beats were much slower. The balance, instead of turning quite round, as Dr. Hooke's, turns several rounds every vibration.
Mr. Derham suggests, that he has reason to think M. Huygens' fancy was first set to work by some intelligence he might have of Dr. Hooke's invention from Mr. Oldensworth, or some other of his correspondents in England; and this, notwithstanding Mr. Oldensworth's attempt to vindicate himself in the Philosophical Transactions, appears to be the truth. Huygens invented divers other kinds of watches, some of them without any string or chain at all; which he called particularly, pendulum watches.
CHAP. LXXIII.
CURIOSITIES RESPECTING THE ARTS.--(_Continued._)
_Telegraph--Spectacle of a Sea Fight at Rome--Wooden Eagle; and Iron Fly--Whitehead's Ship--Scaliot's Lock, &c.--Praxiteles' Venus--Weaving Engine--Hydraulic Birds--Herschell's Grand Telescope--Boverick's Curiosities--Bunzlau Curiosities--Artificial Flying._
TELEGRAPH.--This is a word derived from the Greek, and which is very properly given to an instrument, by means of which information may be almost instantaneously conveyed to a considerable distance. The telegraph, though it has been generally known and used by the moderns only for a few years, is by no means a modern invention. There is reason to believe, that amongst the Greeks there was some sort of telegraph in use. The burning of Troy was certainly known in Greece very soon after it happened, and before any person had returned from thence. Now that was altogether so tedious a piece of business, that conjecture never could have supplied the place of information. A Greek play begins with a scene, in which a watchman descends from the top of a tower in Greece, and gives the information that Troy was taken. "I have been looking out these ten years (says he) to see when that would happen, and this night it is done." Of the antiquity of a mode of conveying intelligence quickly to a great distance, this is certainly a proof. The Chinese, when they send couriers on the great canal, or when any great man travels there, make signals by fire, from one day's journey to another, to have every thing prepared; and most of the barbarous nations used formerly to give the alarm of war by fires lighted on the hills, or rising grounds.
It does not appear that the moderns had thought of such a machine as a telegraph, till the year 1663, when the Marquis of Worcester, in his "Century of Inventions," affirmed, that he had discovered "a method by which, at a window, as far as eye can discover black from white, a man may hold discourse with his correspondent, without noise made, or notice taken, being, according to occasion given, or means afforded, _ex re nata_, and no need of provision beforehand; though much better if foreseen, and course taken by mutual consent of parties." This could be done only by means of a telegraph, which, in the next sentence, is declared to have been rendered so perfect, that by means of it the correspondence could be carried on "by night as well as by day, though as dark as pitch is black."
About forty years afterwards, M. Amontons proposed a new telegraph. His method was this:--Let there be people placed in several stations, at such a distance from one another, that, by the help of a telescope, a man in one station may see a signal made in the next before him; he must immediately make the same signal, that it may be seen by persons in the station next after him, who are to communicate it to those in the following station, and so on. These signals may be as letters of the alphabet, or as a cipher, understood only by the two persons who are in the distant places, and not by those who make the signals. The person in the second station making the signal to the person in the third, the very moment he sees it in the first; the news may be carried to the greatest distance in as little time as is necessary to make the signals in the first station. The distance of the several stations, which must be as few as possible, is measured by the reach of a telescope. Amontons tried this method in a small tract of land, before several persons of the highest rank at the court of France. It was not, however, till the French revolution, that the telegraph was applied to useful purposes.
Whether M. Chappe, who is said to have invented the telegraph first used by the French about the end of 1793, knew any thing of Amonton's invention or not, it is impossible to say; but his telegraph was constructed on principles nearly similar. The manner of using this telegraph was as follows:--At the first station, which was on the roof of the palace of Louvre, at Paris, M. Chappe, the inventor, received in writing from the Committee of Public Welfare, the words to be sent to Lisle, near which the French army at that time was. An upright post was erected on the Louvre, at the top of which were two transverse arms, moveable in all directions by a single piece of mechanism, and with inconceivable rapidity. He invented a number of positions for these arms, which stood as signs for the letters of the alphabet; and these, for the greater celerity and simplicity, he reduced in number as much as possible. The grammarian will easily conceive that sixteen signs may amply supply all the letters of the alphabet, since some letters may be omitted, not only without detriment, but with advantage. These signs, as they were arbitrary, could be changed every week; so that the sign of B for one day, might be the sign of M the next; and it was only necessary that the persons at the extremities should know the key. The intermediate operators were only instructed generally in these sixteen signals; which were so distinct, so marked, so different the one from the other, that they were remembered with the greatest ease.
The construction of the machine was such, that each signal was uniformly given in precisely the same manner at all times: it did not depend on the operator's manual skill; and the position of the arm could never, for any one signal, be a degree higher or a degree lower, its movement being regulated mechanically. M. Chappe having received, at the Louvre, the sentence to be conveyed, gave a known signal to the second station (which was Mont Martre) to prepare. At each station there was a watch-tower, where telescopes were fixed, and the person on watch gave the signal of preparation which he had received, and this communicated successively through all the line, which brought them all into a state of readiness. The person at Mont Martre then received, letter by letter, the sentence from the Louvre, which he repeated with his own machine; and this was again repeated from the next height, with inconceivable rapidity, to the final station at Lisle.
Various experiments were in consequence tried upon telegraphs in this country; and one was soon after set up by government, in a chain of stations from the admiralty-office to the sea-coast. It consists of six octagon boards, each of which is poised upon an axis in a frame, in such a manner that it can be either placed vertically, so as to appear with its full size to the observer at the nearest station, or it becomes invisible to him by being placed horizontally, or with only the narrow edge exposed. These six boards make thirty-six changes, by the most plain and simple mode of working; and they will make many more, if more were necessary.
We submit to the reader the following account of a SPECTACLE OF A SEA FIGHT AT ROME.--Augustus, to divert his mind from fixing on his domestic misfortunes, exhibited the most magnificent and expensive shows that had ever been seen at Rome. Chariot-races in the circus, representations on the stage, combats by gladiators, &c. were now become common. Augustus, therefore, the better to divert both himself and the people, revived these sports, which had been for a considerable time laid aside, on account of the extraordinary charges that attended them. He caused a canal to be dug, eighteen hundred paces in length, and two hundred in breadth, conveying into it the Flaminian waters, and building scaffolds quite round it, capable of holding a prodigious multitude of spectators. And indeed the concourse of people was so great, that the emperor was obliged to place guards in all quarters of the city, lest the thieves should lay hold of that opportunity to plunder the empty and abandoned houses. Augustus had frequently entertained the people with fights of lions, tigers, elephants, rhinoceroses, &c. but now the new canal appeared all on a sudden covered with crocodiles, of which thirty-six were killed by Egyptians, brought from the banks of the Nile for that purpose. The multitude were highly delighted by this sight, which was quite new; but the sea-fight which ensued, afforded them still greater diversion: for, at the opposite ends of the lake, or canal, two fleets appeared, the galleys of one being built after the Greek, and those of the other after the Persian manner. Both fleets engaged; and, as they fought in good earnest, most of the combatants being persons sentenced to death, the battle proved very bloody.
A WOODEN EAGLE, AND AN IRON FLY.--Petrus Ramus tells us of a Wooden Eagle and an Iron Fly, made by Regiomontanus, a famous mathematician at Nuremberg: whereof the first flew forth out of the city, aloft in the air, met the Emperor Maximilian a good way off, coming towards it; and, having saluted him, returned again, waiting on him at the city gates. The second, at a feast, whereto the Emperor had invited his familiar friends, flew forth from his hand, and, taking a round, returned thither again, to the great astonishment of the beholders: both which, the excellent pen of the noble Du Bartas has expressed in the following lines:
Why should I not that Wooden Eagle mention, A learned German's late admir'd invention, Which, mounting from his fist that fram'd her, Flew far to meet the German Emperor? And, having met him, with her nimble train And pliant wings turning about again, Follow'd him close unto the castle gate Of Nuremberg; whom all their shows of state, Streets hung with arras, arches curious built, Grey-headed senate, and youth's gallantries, Grac'd not so much as only this device.
He goes on, and thus describes the Fly:
Once, as this artist, more with mirth than meat; Feasted some friends whom he esteemed great, Forth from his hand an Iron Fly flew out; Which having flown a perfect round about, With weary wings returned to his master, And as judicious on his arm he plac'd her. Oh! wit divine, that in the narrow womb Of a small Fly could find sufficient room For all those springs, wheels, counterpoise, and chains, Which stood instead of life, and blood, and veins.
WHITEHEAD'S SHIP.--George Whitehead, an Englishman, made a ship, with all her tackling, to move itself on a table, with rowers plying the oars, a woman playing on the lute, and a little whelp crying on the deck,--says Scottus, in his Itinerary.