Time will not permit me to say as much about this curious old book as its quaintness and terribly bad science deserve, I will only show you one more illustration from it in which a wheel is driven round by two Æolipiles in the form of human heads, which blow out jets of steam against the cellular periphery of the wheel, and in the lower figure the little boilers (C and D) which the heads inclose, are shown separately, the nozzle of one pointing upwards, while that of the other has a downward direction. [Illustration: Fig. 19.] When Kircher’s book was published Louis XIV. was a child, and it is stated by several authorities that both Père Truchet and Camus made the most elaborate automata for his boyish amusement, but as Louis XIV. was forty years old when Truchet came of age and fifty-five When Camus was twenty-one it is difficult to reconcile these statements with facts. Putting aside, however, the question of the period of life when the king amused himself with such things, it is well authenticated that Père Truchet, towards the end of the seventeenth century, constructed for him moving pictures which exhibited extraordinary mechanical skill. One of these was the representation of a five-act opera, the scenery of which was automatically changed between the acts. The actors came on and went off, and performed their parts in pantomime. The proscenium was about sixteen inches in breadth and thirteen in height, and the whole of the machinery with the scenery occupied a space only an inch and a quarter in depth.[8] The account given by Camus of a toy he constructed for this baby king of fifty summers is very wonderful. This elaborate automaton consisted of a small coach drawn by two horses and which contained the figure of a lady with a footman and a page behind. When this little coach was placed on the edge of a suitable table the coachman smacked his whip and the horses immediately started, moving their legs in a most natural manner; when they reached the opposite edge of the table they turned sharply at right angles and proceeded along that edge. As soon as the carriage arrived opposite the king it stopped and both the footman and page got down and opened the door, the lady alighted, and, curtseying to the king, presented a petition. After waiting a few minutes she bowed again to the king and re-entered the carriage, the page got up again behind, the coachman whipped up his horses and drove on, and the footman running after the carriage jumped up into his former place. In the account given by M. de Camus he does not attempt to describe the mechanism of the machine and we have his word alone for the account of its performance.