WITH NOTES. 443 



when it is remembered that for a hundred years later 

 such automata were highly prized by the nobility and 

 gentry, and proved extemely lucrative to the public 

 exhibitors of such mechanical imitations of life. M. 

 Vaucanson s inventions were of this chararcter, attract 

 ing admiring audiences among the learned and the 

 vulgar, on the Continent and in England. A learned 

 society received his communication in Paris, while in 

 London it had the unquestionable honour of being 

 translated by Dr. Desaguliers, who says in his preface, 

 &quot; In giving this paper an English dress, I am still 

 acting in my province, which has been for many years 

 to explain the works of art, as well as the phenomena 

 of nature ;&quot; and his translation is given under the 

 following elaborate title : 



&quot; An account of the mechanism of an automaton or 

 image playing on the German Flute : as it was pre 

 sented in a memoire, to the gentlemen of the Eoyal 

 Academy of Sciences at Paris. By M. Vaucanson, 

 Inventor and maker of the said machine. Together 

 with a description of an artificial Duck, eating, drink 

 ing, macerating the food, &c. As also that of another 

 image, no less wonderful than the first, playing on 

 the tabor and pipe ; as he has given an account of them 

 since the memoir was written. Translated out of the 

 French original, by J. T. Desaguliers, LL.D., F.E.S., 

 Chaplain to his Eoyal Highness the Prince of Wales, 

 4to. 1742.&quot; [24 pages, and an engraved frontispiece.] 



47- 



To make a Ball of any metal, 

 which thrown into a Pool or Pail 

 of water Ihall prefently rife from 

 the bottom, and conftantly fhew by 



