202 LETTERS ON NATUEAL MAGIC. 



who exhibited and explained to a committee of 

 the Academy of Sciences the whole of the 

 mechanism. This learned body was astonished 

 at the ingenuity which it displayed ; and they did 

 not hesitate to state, that the machinery employed 

 for producing the sounds of the flute performed 

 in the most exact manner the very operations of 

 the most expert flute-player, and that the artist 

 had imitated the effects produced, and the means 

 employed by nature, with an accuracy which 

 exceeded all expectation. In 1738, M. Vaucan- 

 son published a memoir, approved of by the 

 Academy, in which he gave a full description of 

 the machinery employed, and of the principles of 

 its construction. Following this memoir, I shall 

 therefore attempt to give as popular a description 

 of the automaton as can be done without length- 

 ened details and numerous figures. 



The body of the flute-player was about 5J 

 feet high, and was placed upon a piece of rock, 

 surrounding a square pedestal 4^ feet high by 3| 

 feet wide. When the panel which formed the 

 front of the pedestal was opened, there was seen 

 on the right a clock movement, which, by the 

 aid of several wheels, gave a rotatory motion to a 

 steel axis about 2| feet long, having cranks at 

 six equidistant points of its length, but lying in 

 different directions. To each crank was attached 

 a cord, which descended and was fixed by its 

 other end to the upper board of a pair of bellows, 

 2 feet long and 6 inches wide. Six pair of 

 bellows arranged along the bottom of the pedestal 

 were then wrought, or made to blow in succession, 

 by turning the steel axis. 



At the upper face of the pedestal, and upon 



