But see! this Convolvulus begins to shut up its flowers, a sure indication of approaching rain; and the Calendula pluvialis, commonly called the poor man's weather-glass, has already closed its petals in anticipation of an April shower. These barometers of nature are seldom mistaken; the big drops are already falling around us ;-run, run, let us seek the shelter of the house, and at our next walk we will take the opposite side of the garden, in the hope of gleaning some reflections from its variegated borders. H. STANZAS, EXCITED BY SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF GREECE. GREECE! glorious Greece! what art thou but a name? The once victorious voice of all thy fame, Which awed the world, now trembles in a sigh; And I will sing thy glory's lullaby For I have loved thee, Greece,-and o'er the lyre Faintly and sadly shall my fingers fly The mournful cadence dies upon the wire, And on the desolate winds, those melodies expire! Yes! I have loved thee-and my youthful soul Where art thou, Athens, and what art thou now? A lovely corse, encircled by a wreath E. B. B. SCIENTIFIC AMUSEMENTS. NO. II. AUTOMATA. WE now pursue the account referred to in our last (page 448). "The room where the automaton chess-player is at present exhibited, has an inner apartment, within which appears the figure of a Turk, as large as life, dressed after the Turkish fashion, sitting behind a chest of three feet and a half in length, two feet in breadth, and two feet and a half in height, to which it is attached by the wooden seat on which it sits. The chest is placed upon four castors, and, together with the figure, may be easily moved to any part of the room. On the plain surface formed by the top of the chest, in the centre, is a raised immovable chess-board of handsome dimensions, upon which the figure has its eyes fixed; its right arm and hand being extended on the chest, and its left arm somewhat raised, as if in the attitude of holding a Turkish pipe, which originally was placed in its hand. "The exhibitor begins by wheeling the chest to the entrance of the apartment within which it stands, and in face of the spectators. He then opens certain doors contrived in the chest, two in front and two at the back; at the same time pulling out a long shallow drawer at the bottom of the chest, made to contain the chess-men, a cushion for the arm of the figure to rest upon, and some counters. Two lesser doors, and a green cloth screen, contrived in the body of the figure and its lower parts, are likewise opened, and the Turkish robe which covers them is raised; so that the construction, both of the figure and chest, internally, is displayed. In this state the automaton is moved round for the examination of the spectators: and, to banish all suspicion from the most sceptical mind, that any living subject is concealed within any part of it, the exhibitor introduces a lighted candle into the body of the chest and figure, by which the interior of the chest is, in a great measure, rendered transparent, and the most secret corner is shown. Here it may be observed, that the same precaution to remove suspicion is used, if requested, at the close, as at the commencement, of a game of chess with the automaton. "The chest is divided, by a partition, into two unequal chambers. That to the right of the figure is the narrowest, and occupies scarcely one third of the body of the chest. It is filled with little wheels, levers, cylinders, and other machinery used in clock-work. That to the left contains a few wheels, some small barrels with springs, and two quarters of a circle placed horizontally. The body and lower parts of the figure contain certain tubes, which seem to be conductors to the machinery. After a sufficient time, during which each spectator may satisfy his scruples and his curiosity, the exhibitor recloses the doors of the chest and figure, and the drawer at the bottom; makes some arrangements in the body of the figure, winds up the works with a key inserted into a small opening on the side of the chest, places a cushion under the left arm of the figure, which now rests upon it, and invites any individual present to play a game of chess." "At the commencement of a game, the automaton moves its head, as if taking a view of the board; the same motion occurs at the close of a game. In making a move, it slowly raises its left arm from the cushion placed under it, and directs it toward the square of the piece to be moved. Its hands and fingers open on touching the piece, which it takes up, and conveys to any proposed square. The arm then returns with a natural motion to the cushion upon which it usually rests. In taking a piece, the automaton makes the same motions of the arm and hand to lay hold of the piece, which it conveys from the board; and then returning to its own piece, it takes it up, and places it on the vacant square. " His motions have an air of great dignity and composure. On giving check to the king, he moves his head as a signal. When a false move is made, as if to puzzle him, he taps with his right hand on the chest, replaces the piece wrongly moved, and proceeds to take the due advantage of moving a piece of his own. At other times he will tap on the chest for his adversary to move; and at the close of the game he bows gracefully round to the company. It is a remarkable, and somewhat suspicious circumstance, that neither the present proprietor of this automaton (in a pamphlet circulated by him on this subject), nor the Oxford graduate, from whose observations we have abridged the above account of his performances, takes any notice of the attempted solution of them by Mr. Collinson, a correspondent of Dr. Hutton's, to whom we have before alluded. In the same letter + in "Observations," &c. by an Oxford Graduate, 8vo. 1819. + We subjoin that part of the letter which relates to this subject 66 Turning over the leaves of your late valuable publication, Part I. of the Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary, I observed, under the article " AUTOMATON," the following But all these seem inferior to M. Kempelin's chess player, which may truly be considered as the greatest master-piece in mechanics that ever appeared in the world.' So it certainly would have been, had its scientific movements depended merely on mechanism. Being slightly acquainted with M. Kempelin, when he exhibited his chess-playing figure in London, I called on him, about five years since, at his house in Vienna; another gentleman and myself being then on a tour on the Continent. The baron (for I think he is such) shewed me some working models, which he had lately made. Among them, an improvement on Arkwright's cotton-mill, and also one which he thought an improvement of Bolton and Watt's last steam-engine. I asked him after a piece of speaking mechanism, which he had shewn me when in London. which this gentleman describes the automaton inventions of the Droz family, he speaks of a pamphlet presented to him at Dresden, which affirms the whole phenomena to be produced by human agency; a conjecture which is confirmed by a writer in the Edinburgh Encyclopædia. A well-taught boy is said to be partly concealed in the ample drapery of our automaton's lower limbs, and partly in the commode on which the chess-board is placed. He cannot be seen when the doors are opened, we are told, "because his legs and thighs are then concealed in two hollow cylinders, which appear designed to support the wheels and levers, the rest of the body being at that moment out of the commode, and hid in the drapery of the automaton. When the doors of the commode are shut, the clacks which are heard by the turning of a rounce, permit the dwarf to change his place, and re-enter the commode without being heard; and while the machine is rolled about to different parts of the room, to prove that it is perfectly detached, the dwarf has an opportunity of shutting the trap through which he has passed. The drapery of the automaton is then lifted up, and the interior part of the body is shewn, to convince the spectators that all is fair, and the whole terminates, to their great astonishment, and in the illusion that an effect is produced by simple machinery, which can only arise from a well-ordered head."* This writer proceeds to conjecture that the chess-board is semi-transparent, so as at once to conceal the party within, and afford him sufficient light to perceive the moves of his antagonist, which are met by an interior lever, governing the arm of the automaton, on the principles of the pantograph. With these accounts of the chess-player very distinctly in his mind, and an extract of the supposed method of concealing the dwarf or boy, in his pocket, the writer of this paper went It spoke as before, and I gave the same word as when I before saw it, exploitation, which it distinctly pronounced with the French accent. But I particularly noticed, that not a word passed about the chess-player, and, of course, I did not ask to see it. In the progress of the tour I came to Dresden, where, becoming acquainted with Mr. Eden, our envoy there, by means of a letter given me by his brother, Lord Auckland, who was ambassador when I was at Madrid, he accordingly accompanied me in seeing several things worthy of my attention; and he introduced my companion and myself to a gentleman of rank and talents, named Joseph Freideric Freyhere, who seems completely to have discovered the vitality and soul of the chess-playing figure. This gentleman courteously presented me with the treatise he had published, dated at Dresden, Sept. 30, 1789, explaining its principles, accompanied with curious plates, neatly coloured. This treatise is in the German language, and I hope soon to get a translation of it. A well-taught boy, very thin and small of his age, sufficiently so that he could be concealed in a drawer, almost immediatety under the chess-board, agitated the whole. This discovery at Dresden accounts for the silence about it at Vienna; for I understood, by Mr. Eden, that Mr. Freyhere had sent a copy of it to Baron Kempelin, though he seems unwilling to acknowledge that Mr. F. has completely analyzed the whole."-HUTTON'S Mathematical Dictionary, Supplement. * Article "ANDROIDES," Brewster's Encyclopædia. with some friends, a few months ago, to visit, and, if possible, to play at chess with the automaton. His engagements, however, were far too numerous for the writer to obtain that honour on this occasion. Some slight changes had taken place in the manner of exhibiting the automaton (compared with the account of the Oxford graduate): having, therefore, avowed to the proprietor, that his object was to obtain a scientific knowledge of his proceedings, as far as it could be done with propriety, the writer took memoranda of what passed. From a door in a canvass screen the automaton and commode were wheeled out at the time appointed, and the figure was made to face the company. Then the inferior chamber of the commode (occupying about one-third of its dimensions) was opened before and behind, when a taper was held by the proprietor in such a situation, as to throw a full light through the machinery that occupied this part of it. He now closed and locked the doors of this chamber, opened the drawer, and took out the men and cushion, as described by the Oxford graduate; after which, he opened the larger chamber of the commode in front, and put the taper through the front door within it. Perhaps one-sixth, or one-eighth of this chamber, was occupied by machinery; the rest was a perfect cavity, lined with green baize. He now shut and locked these doors; then wheeled the commode round, opened and took up the drapery of the figure, and exhibited the body, partly occupied by machinery, and partly left with imperfect imitations of the prominent parts, to the shoulders. The drapery was then carefully pulled down, and the figure wheeled round, so as again to front the spectators, before whom it played a masterly and successful game. The conviction of the writer and his friends (with the figure before them) was, that the concealment of a small thin boy or dwarf was barely possible. The larger chamber would contain him, and that chamber never was opened from behind, nor at the same time that the back of the figure was exposed; while it is observable that the inferior chamber had the light of a taper thrown through it. So that it appeared a practicable contrivance that a boy should be concealed in the drapery while the commode was opened, and in the commode while the figure was exposed. Under these impressions, the writer addressed a letter to the proprietor, in which he stated, that having, with his friends, been highly gratified by the wonderful powers of the automaton chess-player, and intending to communicate the result of his investigation to the public, which must, if satisfactory, prove extremely creditable to the invention,-he requested leave to visit the exhibition, (accompanied by two or three scientific friends and probably in the presence of a member of the Royal Family) in |