[362] [_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._] [363] Historia Ægypti Natural. Lugd. Bat. 1735, 4to, p. 60. ARTIFICIAL ICE. COOLING LIQUORS. The art of preserving snow for cooling liquors during the summer, in warm countries, was known in the earliest ages. This practice is mentioned by Solomon[364], and proofs of it are so numerous in the works of the Greeks and the Romans, that it is unnecessary for me to quote them, especially as they have been collected by others[365]. How the repositories for keeping it were constructed, we are not expressly told; but what I know on the subject I shall here lay before the reader. That the snow was preserved in pits or trenches, is asserted by many[366]. When Alexander the Great besieged the city of Petra, he caused thirty trenches to be dug and filled with snow, which was covered with oak branches, and which kept in that manner for a long time[367]. Plutarch says that a covering of chaff and coarse cloth is sufficient[368]; and at present a like method is pursued in Portugal. Where the snow has been collected in a deep gulf, some grass or green sods, covered with dung from the sheep-pens, is thrown over it; and under these it is so well preserved, that the whole summer through it is sent the distance of sixty Spanish miles to Lisbon[369].