position, now informs the company that the Automaton will play a game
of chess with any one disposed to encounter him. This challenge being
accepted, a small table is prepared for the antagonist, and placed
close by the rope, but on the spectators' side of it, and so situated
as not to prevent the company from obtaining a full view of the
Automaton. From a drawer in this table is taken a set of chess-men,
and Maelzel arranges them generally, but not always, with his own
hands, on the chess board, which consists merely of the usual number
of squares painted upon the table. The antagonist having taken his
seat, the exhibiter approaches the drawer of the box, and takes
therefrom the cushion, which, after removing the pipe from the hand
of the Automaton, he places under its left arm as a support. Then
taking also from the drawer the Automaton's set of chess-men, he
arranges them upon the chessboard before the figure. He now proceeds
to close the doors and to lock them--leaving the bunch of keys in
door No. 1. He also closes the drawer, and, finally, winds up the
machine, by applying a key to an aperture in the left end (the
spectators' left) of the box. The game now commences--the Automaton
taking the first move. The duration of the contest is usually limited
to half an hour, but if it be not finished at the expiration of this
period, and the antagonist still contend that he can beat the
Automaton, M. Maelzel has seldom any objection to continue it. Not to
weary the company, is the ostensible, and no doubt the real object of
the limitation. It Wits of course be understood that when a move is
made at his own table, by the antagonist, the corresponding move is
made at the box of the Automaton, by Maelzel himself, who then acts
as the representative of the antagonist. On the other hand, when the
Turk moves, the corresponding move is made at the table of the
antagonist, also by M. Maelzel, who then acts as the representative
of the Automaton. In this manner it is necessary that the exhibiter
should often pass from one table to the other. He also frequently
goes in rear of the figure to remove the chess-men which it has
taken, and which it deposits, when taken, on the box to the left (to
its own left) of the board. When the Automaton hesitates in relation
to its move, the exhibiter is occasionally seen to place himself very
near its right side, and to lay his hand, now and then, in a careless
manner upon the box. He has also a peculiar shuffle with his feet,
calculated to induce suspicion of collusion with the machine in minds
which are more cunning than sagacious. These peculiarities are, no
doubt, mere mannerisms of M. Maelzel, or, if he is aware of them at
all, he puts them in practice with a view of exciting in the
spectators a false idea of the pure mechanism in the Automaton.
The Turk plays with his left hand. All the movements of the arm are
at right angles. In this manner, the hand (which is gloved and bent
in a natural way,) being brought directly above the piece to be
moved, descends finally upon it, the fingers receiving it, in most
cases, without difficulty. Occasionally, however, when the piece is
not precisely in its proper situation, the Automaton fails in his
attempt at seizing it. When this occurs, no second effort is made,
but the arm continues its movement in the direction originally
intended, precisely as if the piece were in the fingers. Having thus
designated the spot whither the move should have been made, the arm
returns to its cushion, and Maelzel performs the evolution which the
Automaton pointed out. At every movement of the figure machinery is
heard in motion. During the progress of the game, the figure now and
then rolls its eyes, as if surveying the board, moves its head, and
pronounces the word _echec _(check) when necessary. {*3} If a false
move be made by his antagonist, he raps briskly on the box with the
fingers of his right hand, shakes his head roughly, and replacing the
piece falsely moved, in its former situation, assumes the next move
himself. Upon beating the game, he waves his head with an air of
triumph, looks round complacently upon the spectators, and drawing
his left arm farther back than usual, suffers his fingers alone to
rest upon the cushion. In general, the Turk is victorious--once or
twice he has been beaten. The game being ended, Maelzel will again if
desired, exhibit the mechanism of the box, in the same manner as
before. The machine is then rolled back, and a curtain hides it from
the view of the company.
There have been many attempts at solving the mystery of the
Automaton. The most general opinion in relation to it, an opinion too
not unfrequently adopted by men who should have known better, was, as
we have before said, that no immediate human agency was employed--in
other words, that the machine was purely a machine and nothing else.
Many, however maintained that the exhibiter himself regulated the
movements of the figure by mechanical means operating through the
feet of the box. Others again, spoke confidently of a magnet. Of the
first of these opinions we shall say nothing at present more than we
have already said. In relation to the second it is only necessary to
repeat what we have before stated, that the machine is rolled about
on castors, and will, at the request of a spectator, be moved to and
fro to any portion of the room, even during the progress of a game.
The supposition of the magnet is also untenable--for if a magnet were
the agent, any other magnet in the pocket of a spectator would
disarrange the entire mechanism. The exhibiter, however, will suffer
the most powerful loadstone to remain even upon the box during the
whole of the exhibition.
The first attempt at a written explanation of the secret, at least
the first attempt of which we ourselves have any knowledge, was made
in a large pamphlet printed at Paris in 1785. The author's hypothesis
amounted to this--that a dwarf actuated the machine. This dwarf he
supposed to conceal himself during the opening of the box by
thrusting his legs into two hollow cylinders, which were represented
to be (but which are not) among the machinery in the cupboard No. I,
while his body was out of the box entirely, and covered by the
drapery of the Turk. When the doors were shut, the dwarf was enabled
to bring his body within the box--the noise produced by some portion
of the machinery allowing him to do so unheard, and also to close the
door by which he entered. The interior of the automaton being then
exhibited, and no person discovered, the spectators, says the author
of this pamphlet, are satisfied that no one is within any portion of
the machine. This whole hypothesis was too obviously absurd to
require comment, or refutation, and accordingly we find that it
attracted very little attention.
In 1789 a book was published at Dresden by M. I. F. Freyhere in which
another endeavor was made to unravel the mystery. Mr. Freyhere's book
was a pretty large one, an
d copiously illustrated by colored
engravings. His supposition was that "a well-taught boy very thin and
tall of his age (sufficiently so that he could be concealed in a
drawer almost immediately under the chess-board") played the game of
chess and effected all the evolutions of the Automaton. This idea,
although even more silly than that of the Parisian author, met with a
better reception, and was in some measure believed to be the true
solution of the wonder, until the inventor put an end to the
discussion by suffering a close examination of the top of the box.
These bizarre attempts at explanation were followed by others equally
bizarre. Of late years however, an anonymous writer, by a course of
reasoning exceedingly unphilosophical, has contrived to blunder upon
a plausible solution--although we cannot consider it altogether the
true one. His Essay was first published in a Baltimore weekly paper,
was illustrated by cuts, and was entitled "An attempt to analyze the
Automaton Chess-Player of M. Maelzel." This Essay we suppose to have
been the original of the _pamphlet to _which Sir David Brewster
alludes in his letters on Natural Magic, and which he has no
hesitation in declaring a thorough and satisfactory explanation. The
_results _of the analysis are undoubtedly, in the main, just; but we
can only account for Brewster's pronouncing the Essay a thorough and
satisfactory explanation, by supposing him to have bestowed upon it a
very cursory and inattentive perusal. In the compendium of the Essay,
made use of in the Letters on Natural Magic, it is quite impossible
to arrive at any distinct conclusion in regard to the adequacy or
inadequacy of the analysis, on account of the gross misarrangement
and deficiency of the letters of reference employed. The same fault
is to be found in the '`Attempt &c.," as we originally saw it. The
solution consists in a series of minute explanations, (accompanied by
wood-cuts, the whole occupying many pages) in which the object is to
show the _possibility _of _so shifting the partitions _of the box, as
to allow a human being, concealed in the interior, to move portions
of his body from one part of the box to another, during the
exhibition of the mechanism--thus eluding the scrutiny of the
spectators. There can be no doubt, as we have before observed, and as
we will presently endeavor to show, that the principle, or rather the
result, of this solution is the true one. Some person is concealed in
the box during the whole time of exhibiting the interior. We object,
however, to the whole verbose description of the _manner _in which
the partitions are shifted, to accommodate the movements of the
person concealed. We object to it as a mere theory assumed in the
first place, and to which circumstances are afterwards made to adapt
themselves. It was not, and could not have been, arrived at by any
inductive reasoning. In whatever way the shifting is managed, it is
of course concealed at every step from observation. To show that
certain movements might possibly be effected in a certain way, is
very far from showing that they are actually so effected. There may
be an infinity of other methods by which the same results may be
obtained. The probability of the one assumed proving the correct one
is then as unity to infinity. But, in reality, this particular point,
the shifting of the partitions, is of no consequence whatever. It was
altogether unnecessary to devote seven or eight pages for the purpose
of proving what no one in his senses would deny--viz: that the
wonderful mechanical genius of Baron Kempelen could invent the
necessary means for shutting a door or slipping aside a pannel, with
a human agent too at his service in actual contact with the pannel or
the door, and the whole operations carried on, as the author of the
Essay himself shows, and as we shall attempt to show more fully
hereafter, entirely out of reach of the observation of the
spectators.
In attempting ourselves an explanation of the Automaton, we will, in
the first place, endeavor to show how its operations are effected,
and afterwards describe, as briefly as possible, the nature of the
_observations _from which we have deduced our result.
It will be necessary for a proper understanding of the subject, that
we repeat here in a few words, the routine adopted by the exhibiter
in disclosing the interior of the box--a routine from which he _never
_deviates in any material particular. In the first place he opens the
door No. I. Leaving this open, he goes round to the rear of the box,
and opens a door precisely at the back of door No. I. To this back
door he holds a lighted candle. He then _closes the back door, _locks
it, and, coming round to the front, opens the drawer to its full
extent. This done, he opens the doors No. 2 and No. 3, (the folding
doors) and displays the interior of the main compartment. Leaving
open the main compartment, the drawer, and the front door of cupboard
No. I, he now goes to the rear again, and throws open the back door
of the main compartment. In shutting up the box no particular order
is observed, except that the folding doors are always closed before
the drawer.
Now, let us suppose that when the machine is first rolled into the
presence of the spectators, a man is already within it. His body is
situated behind the dense machinery in cupboard No. T. (the rear
portion of which machinery is so contrived as to slip _en masse,
_from the main compartment to the cupboard No. I, as occasion may
require,) and his legs lie at full length in the main compartment.
When Maelzel opens the door No. I, the man within is not in any
danger of discovery, for the keenest eve cannot penetrate more than
about two inches into the darkness within. But the case is otherwise
when the back door of the cupboard No. I, is opened. A bright light
then pervades the cupboard, and the body of the man would be
discovered if it were there. But it is not. The putting the key in
the lock of the back door was a signal on hearing which the person
concealed brought his body forward to an angle as acute as
possible--throwing it altogether, or nearly so, into the main
compartment. This, however, is a painful position, and cannot be long
maintained. Accordingly we find that Maelzel _closes the back door.
_This being done, there is no reason why the body of the man may not
resume its former situation--for the cupboard is again so dark as to
defy scrutiny. The drawer is now opened, and the legs of the person
within drop down behind it in the space it formerly occupied. {*4}
Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe Page 141