. {*3} If a false move be made by his antagonist,
he raps briskly on the box with the fingers of his right hand, shakes
his head roughly, and replacing the piece falsely moved, in its former
situation, assumes the next move himself. Upon beating the game, he
waves his head with an air of triumph, looks round complacently upon the
spectators, and drawing his left arm farther back than usual, suffers
his fingers alone to rest upon the cushion. In general, the Turk is
victorious--once or twice he has been beaten. The game being ended,
Maelzel will again if desired, exhibit the mechanism of the box, in the
same manner as before. The machine is then rolled back, and a curtain
hides it from the view of the company.

There have been many attempts at solving the mystery of the Automaton.
The most general opinion in relation to it, an opinion too not
unfrequently adopted by men who should have known better, was, as we
have before said, that no immediate human agency was employed--in other
words, that the machine was purely a machine and nothing else. Many,
however maintained that the exhibiter himself regulated the movements
of the figure by mechanical means operating through the feet of the
box. Others again, spoke confidently of a magnet. Of the first of these
opinions we shall say nothing at present more than we have already said.
In relation to the second it is only necessary to repeat what we have
before stated, that the machine is rolled about on castors, and will,
at the request of a spectator, be moved to and fro to any portion of the
room, even during the progress of a game. The supposition of the magnet
is also untenable--for if a magnet were the agent, any other magnet in
the pocket of a spectator would disarrange the entire mechanism. The
exhibiter, however, will suffer the most powerful loadstone to remain
even upon the box during the whole of the exhibition.

The first attempt at a written explanation of the secret, at least the
first attempt of which we ourselves have any knowledge, was made in
a large pamphlet printed at Paris in 1785. The author's hypothesis
amounted to this--that a dwarf actuated the machine. This dwarf he
supposed to conceal himself during the opening of the box by thrusting
his legs into two hollow cylinders, which were represented to be (but
which are not) among the machinery in the cupboard No. I, while his body
was out of the box entirely, and covered by the drapery of the Turk.
When the