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Show A WALKING AUTOMATON. After a year of patient labor, a very ingenious automaton, says the Sidney, Australia, Herald, has just been completed by Mr. Hornburg, of Sidney. Its specialty is that it walks - walks in the same style and with much the same motion as a human being does. The place occupied by lungs, heart, and other indispensable organs in the human frame are represented in Frankenstein -Mr. Hornburg's creation - by machinery; and the rattling and gasping sounds which emanate from him would be anything but reassuring if they followed the exertion of gentle walking when undertaken by an ordinary person. Frankenstein is about five feet six inches high; his motive power is steam, supplied to him by means of a horizontal tube, on which one hand rests. This tube is connected at one end with a tall upright exhaust pipe, into which the steam from a little engine close by passes. As the automaton man moves, an ? [eccentric] in the hip revolves, and lever action bends the knee, raises the toes from the ground and throws the foot forward. Then the foot drops, and the other one repeats the action, the imitation of walking being very good. |