G'day all,
     I haven't posted for some time, so I thought I would try to answer
some of Damon Atchison's questions about the French dolls.  One that I
have seen and heard playing was in the Science Museum in Paris in 1987
and she (18th century doll) played an instrument like a Zither
(dulcimer?) with little hammers and was supposed to have belonged to
Marie Antionette.  I believe such mechanical humans were known as
automatons before robots were fashionable. I have also seen a similar
doll in Switzerland which could write a few words with pen and paper.
From memory, these dolls were operated by clockwork using cams and
wires and were made in Switzerland, France and possibly Germany in the
18th and 19th centuries.  On the musical side, I have also seen and
heard an 18th cent.  water (?) powered organ at the Scho"nbrunn (sp)
palace in Saltzburg, Austria.    I suspect  the organ was pneumatic,
driven by a water powered pump because it didn't make gurgling noises,
but was in an amazing garden where everything was run by water!  It
must have had some primitive mechanism to store the tunes but
unfortunately I was not able to find out how they did it.  Has anyone
else seen it?  Those early "mechanics" were amazingly skilful, taking
into account the tools and materials available at the time.

Cheers,¶
Darrell