Coming to our own period, from the time of Robert-Houdin, there have been no great automata which will live in the history of the subject, until the year 1875, when Mr. J. N. Maskelyne (who, I am happy to tell you, is honouring us with his presence to-night) exhibited at the Egyptian Hall his marvellous “Psycho.” This was a seated figure, supported by a cylindrical pedestal of glass which stood upon a little platform, and, being on castors, could be wheeled about the floor. This automaton can actually play a game of whist, selecting the cards from a rack in front of it, and playing a most skilful game. The machine works apparently without any mechanical connection with anything outside, and the delicacy and precision of its actions, display the most consummate skill in design, and give to its inventor a high position for mechanical science. This automaton also works out arithmetical calculations, with numbers from one to a hundred millions, showing the result behind a door which opens in front of its box. Another of Mr. Maskelyne’s automata, is the celebrated “Zoe” of 1877, a sitting figure supported like the last on a glass pedestal so as to exclude the possibility of an electrical system of communication. A sheet of paper is fastened on to the table in front, and the figure traces out very fair portraits of public characters chosen by the audience out of a list of some two hundred names. In respect to these most beautiful machines I must refrain from revealing to you the secrets of their working, and that for two reasons, first, because I do not know them myself; and second, because Mr. Maskelyne is here and is doubtless only impatient to jump up when I sit down and tell us all about them. I do not intend to say anything about speaking machines or to do more than make a passing reference to the very interesting work and researches of Kircher in 1650, Van Helmont, 1667, Kratzenstein, in 1780, L’Abbé Mical, in 1783, Von Kempelen in 1791, Willis in 1829, Wheatstone in 1837, or of Faber in 1862. All these mechanicians and physicists studied the philosophy of speech and produced machines or parts of machines, which could utter vowels, words or even sentences, but these machines were operated by keys and stops and were, in no sense of the term, automata.