AUTOMATON CHESS-PLAYER. 321 



the living animal in size and appearance. It executed 

 accurately all its movements and gestures, it ate and drank 

 with avidity, performed all the quick motions of the head 

 and throat which are peculiar to the living animal, and 

 like it, it muddled the water which it drank with its bill. 

 It produced also the sound of quacking in the most natural 

 manner. In the anatomical structure of the duck, the 

 artist exhibited the highest skill. Every bone in the real 

 duck had its representative in the automaton, and its 

 wings were anatomically exact. Every cavity, apophysis, 

 and curvature was imitated, and each bone executed its 

 proper movements. When corn was thrown down before 

 it, the duck stretched out its neck to pick it up, it swallowed 

 it, digested it, and discharged it, in a digested condition. 

 The process of digestion was effected by chemical solution, 

 and not by trituration, and the food digested in the 

 stomach was conveyed away by tubes to the place of its 

 discharge. 



The automata of Vaucanson were imitated by one Du 

 Moulin, a silversmith, who travelled with them through 

 Germany in 1752, and who died at Moscow in 1765. 

 Beckmann informs us that he saw several of them after 

 the machinery had been deranged ; but that the artificial 

 duck, which he regarded as the most ingenious, was still 

 able to eat, drink, and move. Its ribs, which were made 

 of wire, were covered with duck's feathers, and the motion 

 was communicated through the feet of the duck by means 

 of a cylinder and fine chains like that of a watch. 



Ingenious as all these machines are, they sink into 

 insignificance when compared with the automaton chess- 

 player, which for a long time astonished and delighted 

 the whole of Europe. In the year 1769, M. Kempelen, a 

 gentleman of Presburg in Hungary, constructed an auto- 

 maton chess-player, the general appearance of which is 

 shown in the annexed figures. The chess-player is a 



