ANDROIDES. 
about the room. The doors are then shut, 
and the automaton is ready to play ; and it 
always takes the first move. At every mo- 
tion the wheels are heard ; the image moves 
its head, and looks over every part of the 
chess-board. When it checks the queen it 
shakes its head twice, and thrice in giving 
check to the king. It /likewise shakes its 
head when a false move is made, replaces 
the piece, and makes its own move, by 
which means the adversary loses one. M. de 
Kempelin exhibited his automaton at Pe- 
tersburg, Vienna, Paris, and London, be- 
fore thousands, many of whom were mathe- 
maticians, and chess-players, and yet the se- 
cret by which he governed the motion of 
its arm was never discovered. He valued 
himself upon the construction of a mecha- 
nism, by which the arm could perform ten 
or twelve moves. It then needed to be 
wound up like a watch, after which it was 
capable of continuing the same number of 
motions. This automaton could not play 
unless M. de Kempelin, or his assistant, was 
near it, to direct its movements. A small 
square box was frequently consulted by the 
exhibitor during the game, and in this con- 
sisted tire secret, which the inventor de- 
clared he could communicate in a moment. 
Any person who could beat M. de Kempe- 
lin at chess, was sure of conquering the au- 
tomaton. 
Remark by the Editor . — When this piece 
of mechanism was exhibited in London, it 
played a great number of moves without re- 
quiring to be wound up, and it wws worked 
by a M. Anthon, who walked about the 
room without any apparent communication, 
during the performance. The chess-board 
was part of tire top of the square counter, 
or table, to which tire figure was attached 
in a leaning posture. When the back of 
the figure was opened, an upright iron axis 
was seen with two strong springs, which ap- 
parently were intended to restore the qui- 
escent position after any move : and when 
the doors of the counter were opened, two 
eourpartments were seen, formed by an up- 
right partition in the interior space. In one 
of them was seen a brass barrel, resembling 
that of a barrel-organ, having sixteen verti- 
cal bars or levers, so placed as if to be trip- 
ped by the barrel ; and there was also some 
wheel-work : and in the other compartment, 
there was little except a brass horizontal 
arc, or quadrant, with a brass radius, most 
probably capable of being set to different 
angular situations. The hand of the figure 
Jay upon a cushion, and every approaching 
move was announced by the discharge of a 
click, and the buzzing noise of a fly was 
heard until the move was completed/ The 
fore-arm was first raised about two inches 
by a vertical motion at the elbow : it was 
then carried horizontally, until the hand was 
immediately over the piece to be taken up, 
at which time the fingers suddenly opened, 
the hand dropped, seized the piece, rose 
again, made the move, and dropped the 
piece on the square to which it had arrived. 
But in case the adversary’s pieee were to 
be taken, it was first seized in the manner 
here described, and carried clear off the 
board and dropped, and the subsequent 
move then made into the empty square. Af- 
ter the game was played, the Baron Kem- 
pelin gave the figure a knight, and it moved 
the piece in succession without any pause 
by the proper course, till it had passed every 
square in the board, as was shewn by an as- 
sistant placing a counter on each square, as 
the knight quitted it. 
What can be deduced from so slight and 
transient a public view of this apparatus ? — 
very little. It seems as if the greatest skill 
had been exerted in producing the mechani- 
cal effects, and that the communication of 
the player (Anthon) with the apparatus, 
may be a riddle of no great depth. The 
sixteen pulls from the barrel may bear some 
relation to the eight rows of squares, twice 
taken for the two sides, the white and the 
black ; and as the moves are all reducible 
to those of the castle of the bishop, from 
which they differ in extent of shift only, (ex- 
cept that of the knight, which is an imme- 
diate combination of both) we may guess 
that the pull might determine the line to be 
played in, and the quadrant the distance 
from the back row. But it is useless to ex- 
tend our conjectures, with such scanty 
means. 
The same Baron Kempelin exhibited, in 
his private parlour, a small speaking instru- 
ment or organ, which he said was not then 
in a finished state. It was a kind of box, 
winch he brought out and placed upon a ta- 
ble. Speaking without notes from the re- 
collection of four and twenty years now 
elapsed, I judge its dimensions were about 
two feet in length, one foot wide, and 
eight or nine inches deep. It was open ; 
but we were prevented from seeing the in- 
side by a cloth put over it. The Baron put 
his hands under the cloth, so that his right 
arm was disposed longitudinally in the box, 
and seemed to press a pair of bellows : the 
other hand was put in crosswise at the end, 
