Johann Beckmann - A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume II (of 2)

Physiologia Kircheriana, fol. p. 69.

In Philostrati Opera, ed. Olearii, p. 899.

In Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscr. xiii. p. 274.

Ode xxvii.

Aulus Gellius, x. 12.

See Naudé’s Apology, Bayle’s Dictionary, &c. Thomas Aquinas is said to have been so frightened when he saw this head, that he broke it to pieces, and Albertus thereupon exclaimed, “Periit opus triginta annorum!”

Schol. Mathemat. lib. ii. p. 65.

Dissertat. de Regiomontani Aquila et Musca Ferrea. Altorfi, 1709. – See Mémoires de Trevoux, 1710, Juillet, p. 1283. – Doppelmayer, p. 23. – Fabricii Bibl. Med. Ætat. iv. p. 355. – Heilbronner Hist. Math. p. 504.

Strada De Bello Belgico. Mogunt. 1651, 4to, p. 8. He calls the artist Jannellus Turrianus Cremonensis.

In the year 1738, Le Méchanisme du Fluteur Automate, par Vaucanson, was printed at Paris, in a thin 4to. It contains only a short description of the flute-player, which is copied into the Encyclopédie, i. p. 448, under the article Androide. The duck, as far as I know, has been nowhere described.

Vaucanson died at Paris in 1782.

[The publisher is in possession of an elegantly formed mechanical bird-cage, in which two artificial bullfinches wheel about on a perch, flutter their wings, and move their beaks, while emitting musical sounds in imitation of their natural note. A fountain constructed of spiral glass plays in the centre. Beneath the cage is a clock which sets the whole in motion hourly, for three or four minutes; but it may be set going independently, like a musical snuff-box. It is presumed to have been made by Vaucanson about a hundred years ago, and was at one time a principal attraction at Weeks’s celebrated Museum, where that singular piece of mechanism the Tarantula spider was first exhibited.]

Nicolai, Reise, i. p. 287.

Nouveau Voyage aux Iles de l’Amerique. A la Haye 1724, 2 vols. 4to, ii. pp. 298, 384. From his county he was called Count de Gennes.

Zodiacus Vitæ, xi. 846.

See a small treatise Ueber H. D. Muller’s Redende Maschine, und über redende Maschinen überhaupt. Nurnberg, 1788, 8vo. – Algem. Teutsches Biblioth. vol. lxxxvii. p. 473. The Speaking Figure and the Automaton Chess-player exposed and detected. London, 1784, 8vo. – [This celebrated chess-playing automaton, invented by M. Vankempelin, was repaired and exhibited in London in 1820, by the ingenious mechanician Maelzel, with considerable success. The figure and machinery were always submitted to the inspection of the visitors, and shifted along the floor in various directions before the game commenced, and the deception was so adroitly managed as to escape the detection of the most scrutinizing. The proprietor always took care to secure the best chess-player in the town before he commenced operations, the wonder therefore was greatly increased by the superiority of the automaton’s play. Mr. Lewis directed it in London. It is now generally admitted that a boy was concealed inside.]

Van Dale De Oraculis. Amstelod. 1700, 4to, i. 10, p. 222.

Réponse à l’Histoire des Oracles de M. de Fontenelle.

A few instances are related by Livy, Valerius Maximus, and Plutarch. Among the fables of the Christian church they are more numerous.

Vol. v. p. 90. editio Bipont.

Theodoreti Hist. Eccles. v. 22.

Cassiodori Variar. i. ep. 45.

[ Speaking Automaton. – There is a piece of mechanism now exhibiting to the public at the Egyptian Hall – the work of Professor Faber, of Vienna, and the result, as he states, of twenty-five years of labour and preparation. The name which he has given to this product of his ingenuity is the Euphonia; and the work, as that name implies, is another of those many combinations which have attempted, by the anatomical and physiological study of the structures that contribute to the human voice, to attain to an imitation of that organ as regards both sound and articulation. As an example of inductive and mechanical skill this exhibition is well deserving of attention. The professor himself, by an arrangement of bellows-pipes, pedal and keys, which he plays somewhat like the keys of a piano, prompts the discourse of his automaton; which certainly does enunciate both sounds and words. When we entered the room we found it singing to a select society. It requires all our sense of the ingenuity and perseverance which have been bestowed on the work to induce our assent to the proposition which calls the voice human; but undoubtedly it is a remarkable result of contriving skill and scientific patience. — Athæneum. ]

Historia Ægypti Natural. Lugd. Bat. 1735, 4to, p. 60.

Proverbs, xxv. ver. 13.

Bartholini de Nivis Usu Medico Observationes, Hafn. 1661.

Seneca, Quæst. Natur. iv. 13.

Athenæus, iii. p. 124.

Sympos. vi. quæst. 6. – Augustinus De Civitate Dei, xxi. 4, p. 610.

Mémoires Instructifs pour un Voyageur. How the snow repositories at Constantinople are constructed, is related by Bellon in his Observat. iii. 22.

The dissipated Heliogabalus caused whole mounts of snow to be heaped up in summer in order to cool the air. See Lampridius, Vita Heliogab. cap. 23.

Plin. xix. 4. – Latinus Pacatus in Panegyr. Theodos.

De la Valle, iii. p. 60, where the Persian ice-pits are described, as well as in Chardin, iv. p. 195.

Hist. Nat. xxxi. 3, 23, p. 552.

Vita Neronis, cap. 48: Hæc est Neronis decocta.

In lib. vi. Hippocrat. de Morbis Vulgar. comment. 4, 10.

Meteorol. i. cap. 12.

In the place before quoted.

Deipnos. iii. p. 124.

Ibid. p. 123.

See Pitisci Lex. Antiq. Rom. under the word Decocta.

Philosoph. Transact. vol. lxv. part i. p. 126.

Traité du Mouvement des Eaux.

Du Hamel, Hist. de l’Academ. l. i. c. 3, p. 99.

Tentamina Experimentorum Acad. del Cim. p. 183.

Dissertation sur la Glace. Paris, 1749, 12mo, p. 187.

Philosoph. Transact. vol. lxv. part i. p. 124.

[In India, one mode of cooling wines, is to suspend the bottle in a thick flannel bag, or folds of blotting-paper, kept constantly wetted, and placed in the sun’s rays, or a current of air, or both; by which means the evaporation, and therewith intense coldness, is produced.]