At the Exposition Universelle in Paris, 1867, American novelist Mark Twain witnessed something truly extraordinary – a lifelike mechanical silver swan. Twain watched, enthralled, as the swan seized a fish from under the water and gobbled it down with ‘a living grace about his movements and a living intelligence in his eyes'. Its intricate mechanism – with over 2,000 moving parts – was designed by John Joseph Merlin, and first exhibited in 1774 (nearly a hundred years before Twain's encounter in Paris). The swan now belongs to The Bowes Museum in County Durham. Remarkably, it's still in working order.
Automata like the silver swan have a long history. It's difficult to pinpoint when the first were made. Ancient Chinese, Greek and Roman texts record examples ofclockwork, these ancient automata were powered by hydraulics (water), pneumatics (wind and steam), or gravity (weights).
