ARCHIMEDES

, p. 139, col. 1, l. 52 and 53, for preface, a commentary, read preface. We find here also Eutocius's commentary. Pa. 59, after college, add, who had the sole care of this edition. |

ASSURANCE on Lives. Pa. 150, col. 2, in the 3d paragraph, for want of sufficient information concerning the London and Royal Exchange Assurance Offices, that paragraph gives an imperfect and, in some respect, erroneous account of them: it refers to their state 30 years ago, but the Companies have since that, altered their method of proceeding. Instead of that paragraph therefore, take the following account of their present constitution; viz,

The London Assurance, is a corporation established by a charter of king George the 1st, viz, in 1720; under power of which, Assurances are made from the risk of sea-voyages, and from the danger of fire to houses and goods; the prices of which are regulated by the apparent risk to be assured. They also make Assurances on lives; the prices of which are formed on an estimation of the probable duration of life at different ages, on the consideration of the apparent health of the persons to be assured, and of their avocations in life.

This corporation, and the Royal Exchange corporation, gave each the sum of 150,000 pounds to government, for an exclusive right of making Assurances as corporate bodies. They are known to possess a large and undeniable fund to answer losses. And the prudent management of these corporations has enabled them, of late years, to increase gradually their dividends to the proprietors of their stock. This exclusive privilege to make Assurances as corporate bodies, is of great advantage and convenience to the public; and as they act under a common seal, the assured may have a speedy and easy mode of recovering losses, and cannot be subject to any calls or deductions whatever. When their charters were granted to them, it was enacted, that if a proprietor of the stock of one corporation should at the same time, directly or indirectly, be a proprietor of stock in the other corporation, the respective stock so held is to be forfeited, one moiety to the king, the other to the informer. This was evidently settled, to prevent their interest from becoming a joint one; so that they should be made to act in competition to each other, for the greater benefit of the public.

The Royal Exchange Assurance, is a corporation established by charter, as above, under the power of which, Assurances are made from the risk of sea voyages, and from the danger of fire to houses and goods; the prices of which are regulated by the greater or less risk supposed to be assured. They also make Assurances on lives, the prices of which are formed on estimation of the probable duration of life at different ages, and under different circumstances. The present rates of Assurances on lives are as in the table below. And though a duty on these Assurances should take place on the plan lately proposed to the House of Commons, there is no great probability that these prices will be increased.

This corporation has also, like the former, been empowered to grant life annuities by an act of parliament, which requires that the prices of the annuities should be expressed in tables, hung up in some conspicuous place in their offices, for public inspection; and no agreement for any price is valid, but such as shall be expressed in the tables last made and published by the corporation. |

AUTOMATON. To the end of this article, in pa. 176, col. 2, may be added the following curious particulars, extracted from a letter of an ingenious gentleman since that article was published, viz, Thomas Collinfon, Esq. nephew of the late ingenious Peter Collinson, Esq. F. R. S. “Turning over the leaves of your late valuable publication (says my worthy correspondent), part 1. of the Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary, I observed under the article Automaton, the following:” ‘But all these seem to be inferior to M. Kempell's chess-player, which may truly be considered as the greatest master-piece in mechanics that ever appeared in the world;’ (upon which Mr. Collinson observes) “So it certainly would have been, had its scientific movements depended merely on mechanism. Being slightly acquainted with M. Kempell when he exhibited his chess-playing figure in London, I called on him about five years since at his house at 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 on Boulton and Watt's last steam-engine. I asked him after a piece of speaking mechanism, which he had shewn me when in London. It spoke as before, and I gave the same word as I gave when I first 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 obligingly accompanied me in seeing several things worthy of attention. And he introduced my companion and myself to a gentleman of rank and talents, named Joseph Freidrick 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 welltaught boy, very thin and small of his age (sufficiently so that he could be concealed in a drawer almost immediately under the chess-board), agitated the whole. Even after this abatement of its being strictly an automaton, much ingenuity remains to the contriver.— This discovery at Dresden accounts for the silence about it at Vienna; for I understand, by Mr. Eden, that Mr. Freyhere had sent a copy to baron Kempell: though he seems unwilling to acknowledge that Mr. F. has completely analysed the whole.

“I know that long and uninteresting letters are formidable things to men who know the value of time and science: but as this happens to be upon the subject, forgive me for adding one very admirable piece of mechanism to those you have touched upon. When at Geneva, I called upon Droz, son of the original Droz of la Chaux de Fonds (where I also was). He shewed me an oval gold snuff box, about (if I recollect right) 4 inches and a half long, by 3 inches broad, and about an inch and a half thick. It was double, having an horizontal partition; so that it may be considered as one box placed on another, with a lid of course to each box—One contained snuff—In the other, as soon as the lid was opened, there rose up a very small bird, of green enamelled gold, sitting on a gold stand. Immediately this minute curiosity wagged its rail, shook its wings, opened its bill of white enamelled gold, and poured forth, minute as it was (being only three quarters of an inch from the beak to the extremity of the tail) such a clear melodious song, as would have filled a room of 20 or 30 feet square with its harmony.—Droz agreed to meet me at Florence; and we visited the Abbé Fontana together. He afterwards joined me at Rome, and exhibited his bird to the pope and the cardinals in the Vatican palace, to the admiration, I may say to the astonishment of all who saw and heard it.”

Another extract from a second letter upon the same subject, by Mr. Collinson, is as follows: “Permit me to speak of another Automaton of Droz's, which several years since he exhibited in England; and which, from my personal acquaintance, I had a commodious opportunity of particularly examining. It was a figure of a man, I think the size of life. It held in its hand a metal style; a card of Dutch vellum being laid under it. A spring was touched, which released the internal clockwork from its stop, when the figure immediately began to draw. Mr. Droz happening once to be sent for in a great hurry to wait upon some considerable personage at the west end of the town, left me in possession of the keys, which opened the recesses of all his machinery. He opened the drawing-master himself; wound it up; explained its leading parts; and taught me how to make it obey my requirings, as it had obeyed his own. Mr. Droz then went away. After the first card was finished, the figure rested. I put a second; and so on, to five separate cards, all different subjects: but five or six was the extent of its delineating powers. The first card contained, I may truly say, elegant portraits and likenesses of the king and queen, facing each other: and it was curious to observe with what precision the figure lifted up his pencil, in the transition of it from one point of the draft to another, without making the least slur whatever: for instance, in passing from the forehead to the eye, nose, and chin; or from the waving curls of the hair to the ear, &c. I have the cards now by me, &c, &c.”

Pa. 177, col. 1, l. 2, for August read September. |