Another clock, celebrated for its curious mechanism and motions, is mentioned by Thompson in his continental travels. It is placed in an aisle near the choir of St John's Cathedral, at Lyons. On the top stands a cock, which every three hours claps his wings, and crows thrice. In a gallery underneath, a door opens on one side, out of which comes the Virgin Mary; and from a door on the other side, the angel Gabriel, who meets and salutes her; at the same time a door opens in the alcove part, out of which the form of a dove, representing the Holy Ghost, descends on the Virgin's head. After this these figures retire, and from a door in the middle comes forth a figure of a reverend father, lifting up his hands, and giving his benediction to the spectators. The days of the week are represented by seven figures, each of which takes its place in a niche on the morning of the day it represents, and continues there till midnight. But perhaps the greatest curiosity is an oval plate, marked with the minutes of an hour, which are exactly pointed to by a hand reaching the cir cumference, which insensibly dilates and contracts itself during its revolution. This curious piece of mechanism cannot be supposed to be so perfect in all its motions as it was formerly; and yet it has suffered as little as can be expected in a long course of years, through the care and skill of those appointed to look after it. It appears, by an inscription on the clock itself, that it was repaired and improved by one Nourison in 1661; but it was contrived, long before that time, by Nicholas Lipp, a native of Basil, who finished it in 1598, when he was about thirty years of age. The oval minute motion was invented by M. Servier, and is of a later date. The tradition goes that Lipp had his eyes put out by order of the magistrates of Lyons, that he might never be able to perform the like again; but so far from this being the case, the magistrates engaged him to fix at Lyons, by allowing him a handsome salary to take charge of his own machine.

These

There are other celebrated clocks-such, for example, as that of Lunden in Sweden, and of Exeter in our own countrywhich, from the number and complication of their movements and figures, may well vie with those of Strasburg and Lyons. But these we pass over, to notice two which were made some years since by an English artist, and sent as a present by the East India Company to the Emperor of China. clocks, says a contemporary account, 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, which 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 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 more than the sixteenth part of an

inch. The lady holds in her left hand a gold tube, not 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 no bigger than a quill, are two umbrellas, under the largest of which a bell is fixed, at a considerable distance from the clock, and seeming to have no connexion with it, but from which a communication is secretly conveyed to a hammer that regularly strikes the hour, and repeats the same at pleasure, by touching a diamond button fixed to the clock below. At the feet of the lady is a dog in gold, 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 contrived to run in a straight, circular, or any other direction. A boy, who lays hold of the chariot behind, seems also to push it forward. Above the umbrella are flowers and ornaments of precious stones; the whole terminating with a flying dragon set in the same manner. These gifts were wholly of gold, curiously chased, and embellished with rubies and pearls.

More interesting, perhaps, than any of these, and yet of the simplest construction, and of the most common material, are the electric clocks lately invented by Mr Bain of Edinburgh. The prime mover of these machines is the electric currents of the earth, brought to bear upon the machinery, as thus described by a party for whom one of the earliest was constructed. "On the 28th of August 1844, Mr Bain set up a small clock in my drawing-room, the pendulum of which is in the hall, and both instruments in a voltaic circle as follows:-On the north-east side of my house, two zinc plates, a foot square, are sunk in a hole, and suspended by a wire, which is passed through the house to the pendulum first, and then to the clock. On the south side of the house, at a distance of about forty yards, a hole was dug four feet deep, and two sacks of common coke buried in it; among the coke another wire was secured, and passed in at the drawingroom window, and joined to the former wire at the clock. The ball of the pendulum weighs nine pounds; but it was moved energetically, and has ever since continued to do so with the self-same energy. The time is to perfection; and the cost of the motive powers was only seven shillings and sixpence. There are but three little wheels in the clock, and neither weights nor spring; so there is nothing to be wound up." Many of these ingenious clocks have been since constructed, and an illuminated one, projected from the front of Mr Bain's workshop in Edinburgh, moves, as the inhabitants can testify, with the utmost regularity. One great advantage of this invention is, that, sup

before referred to, one electric current could keep the whole in motion, and thus preserve the most perfect uniformity of time.

As a sequel to these curious clocks may be mentioned some watches, remarkable either for the minuteness of their proportions or the intricacy of their parts. In the Annual Register for 1764, it is stated that Mr Arnold, a watchmaker in London, had the honour to present his majesty, George III., with a curious repeating watch of his own construction, set in a ring. Its size was something less than a silver twopence; it contained one hundred and twenty-five different parts, and weighed altogether no more than five pennyweights and seven grains.-Another, still more curious, is mentioned by Smith, in his " Wonders," as belonging to the Academy of Sciences at St Petersburg. The whole is about the size of an egg, within which is represented our Saviour's tomb, with the stone at the entrance, and the sentinels upon duty; and while a spectator is admiring this ingenious piece of mechanism, the stone is suddenly removed, the sentinels drop down, the angels appear, the women enter the sepulchre, and the same chant is heard which is performed in the Greek church on Easter eve.

To this list, if our space had permitted, we might have added accounts of some curious clocks constructed by Grollier and others, in which the motions were either hid, or so complicated as to deceive the observer; of some that were made to go by their own weight, or by the hidden power of the magnet; of some that were employed to indicate the force and position of the wind, the vigilance of sentinels, &c.; and of others which were applied to the movement of those intricate and curious instruments known by the name of planetariums and orreries. Had it not been for the same reason, odometers for measuring distances travelled over, and set in motion by the limbs of the traveller, gas-metres, and other self-registering apparatus, might have also come in for a share of description, as not only evincing great skill and ingenuity, but on account of the practically useful purposes to which they are applied.

AUTOMATA.

Automata are self-acting, or apparently self-acting, machines, contrived so as to simulate the conduct of living creatures. Many of them evince the utmost ingenuity and skill on the part of the inventors; and though we can scarcely commend, yet we cannot but admire, the enthusiasm that would devote thirty or forty years to the perfecting of such machinery. To notice a tithe of these inventions would greatly exceed our limits; we shall therefore confine our descriptions to a few of the more remarkable.

Automata made to simulate living actions have been constructed in all ages. Archytas of Tarentum, an able astronomer and geometrician, who flourished four hundred years before the Christian era, is said to have made a wooden pigeon that could

fly; and Archimedes seems to have devoted no small portion of his time to similar mechanism. John Muller, commonly known as Regiomontanus, a German astronomer of the fifteenth century, is reported to have constructed a wooden eagle, that flew forth from the city, met the emperor, saluted him, and returned; and also to have made an iron fly, which flew out of his hand at a feast, and returned after sporting about the room. In Muller's automata, the mechanism does not seem to have been of so much importance as the prime mover, which appears to have been nothing more than an ingenious application of the magnet. Albertus Magnus spent thirty years in making a speaking figure; Bacon constructed another; and Dr Hook succeeded in framing a flying chariot, capable of supporting itself for some time in the air. Le Droz, a Swiss watchmaker, also executed very curious pieces of similar mechanism. One was a clock, presented to the king of Spain, which had, among other curiosities, a sheep that imitated the bleating of a natural one; and a dog watching a basket of fruit, which barked and snarled when any one attempted to lift it; besides a number of human figures, exhibiting motions truly surprising. Another automaton of Le Droz's was a figure of a man, about the natural size, which held in the hand a pencil, and by touching a spring that released the internal clockwork from its stop, the figure began to draw on a card; and having finished its drawing on the first card, it rested, and then proceeded to draw different subjects on five or six other cards. The first card exhibited elegant portraits of the king and queen, facing each other; and the figure was observed to lift its pencil with the greatest precision, in the transition from one point to another, without making the slightest slur.

One of the most celebrated automaton makers in recent times was M. Vaucanson, of the Paris Academy of Sciences. In 1738 this gentleman exhibited to the academicians his celebrated fluteplayer, of which we find the following account in Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopædia. We give it at length, as showing the principles upon which Vaucanson's other androides were constructed:"The flute-player was a figure about five feet and a half in height, situated on the fragment of a rock, fixed upon a square pedestal. The front of the pedestal being opened, a clockwork movement was seen, by means of which a steel axis was made to revolve, having various protuberances upon it, to which were attached cords thrown over pulleys, and terminating to the upper boards of nine pairs of bellows, which were thus alternately raised and let down by the revolution of the axis. The disagreeable fluttering noise produced by the wind forcing open the valves of the bellows, was prevented by causing the valves to open by means of levers, which were acted upon by the tightening of the ropes which raised the upper boards of the bellows, and which, therefore, kept the valve open till the boards were allowed to descend. The nine pairs of bellows discharged their

air into three different tubes, which, ascending through the body of the figure, terminated in three small reservoirs in its trunk; these they united into one, which, ascending to the throat, formed the cavity of the mouth. To each of the three pipes, three pairs of bellows were attached. The upper boards of one set were pressed down with a weight of four pounds, those of the second set by a weight of two pounds, and those of the third by their own weight only. Such were the expedients for supplying air to the flute-player. Another piece of clockwork, contained within the pedestal, was for the purpose of communicating the proper motions to his fingers, his lips, and his tongue. By this movement a cylinder was made to revolve, two feet and a half long, and sixty-four inches in circumference, which was divided into fifteen equal parts, of an inch and a half each. In these divisions were inserted various pegs and staples of brass, which raised and depressed the ends of fifteen different levers, similar to those which produce the sounds of a common barrel-organ. Seven of these levers regulated the motions of the seven fingers required to stop the holes of a German flute, with which they communicated by means of steel chains ascending through the body of the figure, and directed by means of pulleys into the proper angles at the shoulder, elbow, &c. Three of the levers regulated the ingress of the air, being connected with the valves of the three reservoirs in the body of the figure, which they opened and shut at pleasure, so as to produce a stronger or weaker, a louder or lower tone. By a similar contrivance, four of the levers served to give the proper motions to the lips: one opened them, so as to allow a freer passage to the air; another contracted them, so as to diminish the efflux of air; the third drew them back from the orifice of the flute; and the fourth pushed them forwards. The remaining lever was employed in the direction of the tongue, to which it gave motion in such a manner as to open and shut the mouth of the flute at pleasure. This mechanism, with other ingenious contrivances, enabled M. Vaucanson to produce all the motions requisite for an expert player on the flute, and which he executed in such a manner as to produce music equal in beauty to that derived from the exertions of a well-practised living performer."

Some of Vaucanson's other automata were still more ingenious than his flute-player. His mechanical performer on the pipe and tabor, constructed in 1741, was capable of playing about twenty airs, consisting of minuets, rigadoons, and country dances. His celebrated duck was capable of eating, drinking, and imitating exactly the voice of a natural one; and what is still more surprising, the food it swallowed was evacuated in a digested state, or at least in an altered state, by means of chemical solution. The wings, viscera, and bones were made to resemble those of a living duck, and the actions of eating and drinking showed the strongest resemblance, even to the muddling the water with its bill.