FAMOUS AUTOMATA.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 9, 4 March 1893, Page 215

FAMOUS AUTOMATA.

BY

JOHN PAUL BOCOCK.

’’SjUTOMATON means a self-moving machine, IH an d * s derived from the Greek words autos, Id: ‘ self,’ and mao, *to move.’ Curiously w( IB enough, considering how much more we l9l think we know to-day, the Greeks more |L : ~ than two thousand years ago perfected some of the most wonderful automata ever made. While * automaton ’ may mean anything which moves itself, the word is applied only to self-moving machines constructed on the pattern of man or beast. Homer, three thousand years ago, spoke of the automatic tripods Vulcan made ; and Dmdalus who must have lived almost as long ago, and was a Greek of the royal house of Erechtheus, built a cow for Pasiphre, Queen of Crete, tradition says, which looked so like others of its kind that they fed side by side with it. Dredalus made the first flying apparatus, and got away from Crete with his artificial wings. We gleam from vague allusions to them that he also made statues which danced and walked through the meadows. Before his time, however, the gigantic statue of Memnon, the son of Tithonus and Aurora, had been erected along the Nile near Thebes, an automaton in one respect only, that it saluted the rising sun and lamented the departure of the orb of day when his first and last rays fell upon the statue’s lips. The perfect climate of Thebes may be inferred from the failure of Memnon’s historians to speak of his silence in cloudy weather. He was reputed to utter his melodious sounds with unfailing regularity morning and evening, but only as his stony lips were warmed by the sun’s rays. Apollonius of Tyana, that wonderful man of Asia Minor, was believed to work miracles, to hold converse with fairies, and to be able to see events that were then happening thousands of miles away. The particular source of his inspiration was declared to be a wooden figure, which he had so artfully put together that it walked and talked and answered questions. Virgil, one of the most famous of Latin poets, has, curiously enough, had attributed to him by writers in the Middle Ages the gifts of magic which enabled him to contrive images so lifelike that they moved. A fly of brass he put over one of the gates of the city of Naples lived there for eight years, and during that time kept out mosquitoes and noxious insects. He also made a brazen trumpeter, and set him upon a hill near Naples; whenever the north wind blew, the trumpeter emitted such a blast that it drove away all the smoke and cinders from the volcano near by. Virgil also built a magic fire along the road-side near Naples, which never needed fuel, and by which all the travellers were welcome to warm themselves. A brazen archer, with an arrow drawn to the head on his bowstring, stood guard over the fire, with this inscription : ‘ Whoever strikes me, I will let fly my arrow.’ There are always some foolish people who boast that they ‘won’t take a dare,’ so a foolhardy Neapolitan struck Virgil’s automatic archer one day, the arrow was immediately discharged into the fire, and the fire, which the automaton had so long tended, went out at once. Another marvellous automatic group said to have been made by the pbet consisted of a set of statues called ‘ The Salvation of Borne.’ Each of these brazen figures corresponded to one of the various nations who at that time were subjects of the Roman Government, and when signs of revolt appeared in that particular nation or tribe, the corresponding statue would instantly ring a bell and point with the forefinger in the direction of the danger. Friar Bacon’s brazen head has been esteemed a prodigy of human skill, and will be described hereafter, but Virgil’s automatic head of brass, made as a diversion by this gifted poet, whom his contemporaries never thought of otherwise than as a man of letters, actually predicted the future, and kept its master, mediaeval records say, well informed of all that was to happen for centuries after the poet died and was buried at Mantua. Regiomontanus is another of the early artificers whose skill history merely mentions. Tradition says he made at least two automata—the one an eagle, which, whenever the Roman Emperor approached, would fly outside the city gates to meet him, circle about his head, and then return within ; the other, an iron fly, which droned and walked along the ceiling after the manner of its kind. A long interval comes now in the development of human ingenuity; and how much ingenuity, wasted in all these past ages, is now directed into shapes of usefulness to mankind, researches such as the study of automata demonstrate in a notable degree. The problem of aerial navigation, which the Germans and French are said, in 1892, to have at last come near solving in their war balloons, must have been on the verge of solution in the time of Diedalus and Regiomontanus, and even so far back as that of Archytas, whose wooden dove so accurately counterfeited the motions of the real dove’s wings.

It is not until the thirteenth century that any otherfamous automaton is heard of. Albertus Magnus, the great Dominican, who was born in 1205 A.D., made a servant of human size and features. Thirty years were required for the completion of this automatic man of brass—the material all these old time artisans seem to have found most to their taste. Not motion alone, but actual speech itself, was his master’s gift to this strange creature, which at last became so talkative that Thomas Aquinas, another very wise man, who was studying with Albertus, flew into a passion one day, and seizing a hammer, beat the automation to pieces. When Albertus saw the fragments of his thirty years of labour, he is said to have exclaimed, ‘ Periit opus triginti annorum !’ (the work of thirty years has perished.) All learned men talked in Latin in those times, and for hundreds of years thereafter, even when they were in great distress, and spoke on the spur of the moment. One of the most interesting characters who ever lived was Roger Bacon, a contemporary of Albertus the Great. He was a Franciscan friar, wrote Latin, Greek, and Hebrew grammars, ascertained the true length of the solar year, and, some say, invented gunpowder. Friar Bacon’s brazen head may be set down as his greatest achievement. The arts of magic were not believed to have anything to do with it; its maker had mastered the principles of natural philosophy. One of the first books printed in England, as seen now in the British Museum, is the * Tale of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungy,’ in which the construction of the brazen head is described. The devil is said to have informed these two wise men that if they would make a fac simile without and within of the human head, it would eventually become an oracle and reveal to them the mysteries of nature. For several years they toiled, and at last the head was finished, and set on a pedestal until the time should arrive when it would begin to talk. They waited and waited, but heard nothing. Then tired nature gave out, and they lay down to sleep, telling their servant to call them the instant the image began to speak. The hour arrived, and the head opened its eyes and began to mumble. The clownish servant did nothing, but waited. The head spoke: * Time is !’ The servant only stared. The head, after a while, spoke once again : ‘ Time was !’ The servant stared and waited. For the third time the brazen head opened its lips, and this time, in tones of agony, exclaimed, * Time shall be no more 1’ At that instant a frightful clap of thunder sounded, and the head was shivered into a thousand pieces.