274 AUTOMATON 



naval arsenals. In Devonport dockyard, tho autogonic process has boon largely 

 used. 



AUTOMATIC. A term employed to designate such economic arts as are carried 

 on by self-acting machinery. Tho word is employed by tho physiologist to express 

 involuntary motions. 



Tho term automatic is now applied to self-acting machinery, or such as has within 

 itself the power of regulating entirely its own movements, although tho moving force 

 is derived from without ; and to what pertains to such machinery ; as automatic opera- 

 tions or improvements. Webster. 



The word ' manufacture,' in its etymological sense, means any system or objects 

 of industry executed by the hands ; but, in the vicissitude of language, it has now 

 como to signify every extensive product of art which is made by machinery, with 

 little or no aid of the human hand, so that the most perfect manufacture is that which 

 dispenses entirely with manual labour. It is in our modern cotton and flax mills that 

 automatic operations are displayed to most advantage ; for there the elemental power 

 HEAT has been made to animate complex organs, imparting to forms of wood, iron, and 

 brass, an agency of seeming intelligence. And as the philosophy of the fine arts, 

 poetry, painting, and music, may be best studied in their individual master-pieces, so 

 may the philosophy of manufactures in these its noblest creations. 



The constant aim and effect of these automatic improvements in the arts are philan- 

 thropic, as they tend to relieve the workman either from niceties of adjustment, which 

 exhaust his mind and fatigue his eyes, or from painful repetition of effort, which 

 distort and wear out his frame. A well -arranged power-mill combines tho operation 

 of many work-people, adult and young, in tending with assiduous skill a system of 

 productive machines continuously impelled by a central force. This great era in the 

 useful arts is mainly due to the genius of Arkwright. Prior to the introduction of 

 hjs system, manufactures were everywhere feeble and fluctuating in their develop- 

 ment; shooting forth luxuriantly fora season, and again withering almost to the roots 

 like annual plants. Their perennial growth then began, and attracted capital, in 

 copious streams, to irrigate the rich domains of industry. When this new career 

 commenced, about the year 1770, the annual consumption of cotton in British manu- 

 factures was under four millions of pounds' weight, and that of the whole of Christen- 

 dom was probably not more than ten millions. In 1850 the consumption in Great 

 Britain and Ireland had risen to five hundred and eighty-eight millions of pounds, 

 and that of Europe and the United States together to one thousand and ninety-two 

 millions. In our spacious factory apartments the benignant power of Steam summons 

 around him his myriads of willing menials, and assigns to each tho regulated task, 

 substituting, for painful muscular effort upon their part, the energies of his own 

 gigantic arm, and demanding in return only attention and dexterity to correct such 

 little aberrations as casually occur in his workmanship. Under his auspices, and in 

 obedience to Arkwright's policy, magnificent edifices, surpassing far in number, value, 

 usefulness, and ingenuity of construction, the boasted monuments of Asiatic, Egyptian, 

 and Roman despotism, have, within a short period, risen up in this kingdom, to show 

 to what extent'capital, industry and science may augment the resources of a State, 

 while they ameliorate the condition of its citizens. Such is the automatic system, 

 which promises, in its future growth, to become the great minister of civilisation to 

 the. terraqueous globe, enabling this country to diffuse, along with its commerce, tho 

 life-blood of knowledge to myriads of people. 



AUTOMATIC ARTS. Such arts or manufactures as are carried on by self- 

 acting machinery. 



AUTOMATON. (avrS^aros automates self -moving.") In the etymological 

 sense, this word (self-working) signifies every mechanical construction which, by 

 virtue of a latent intrinsic force, not obvious to common eyes, can carry on, for some 

 time, certain movements more or less resembling the results of animal exertion, 

 without the aid of external impulse. But the term automaton is, in common language, 

 appropriated to those mechanical artifices in which the purposely concealed power is 

 made to imitate the arbitrary or voluntary motions of living beings. Human 

 figures, of this kind, aro sometimes styled Androides, from the Greek term, like a 

 man. 



Although, from what has been said, clockwork is not properly placed under the 

 head Automaton, it cannot bo doubted that the art of making clocks, in its progressive 

 improvement and extension, has given rise to tho production of automata. Tho most 

 of these, in their interior structure, as well as in the mode of applying tho moving 

 power, have a distinct analogy with clocks ; and these automata are frequently mounted 

 in connection with watchwork. Towards tho end of the 1 3th century, several tower clocks, 

 such as those at Strasburg, Liibeck, Prague, and Olmiitz, had curious mechanisms 

 attached to them. The most careful historical inquiry proves that automata, pro- 



