Wonderful Machines of the Far West, Vol. 1

I have made siphons, crane-drinking vessels, water-wheels, plow-substitutes, self-grinding mills, and self-moving carts. Those who saw them called them quite strange, but in my heart, I was not particularly satisfied. By chance, I read in the Record of Foreign Lands original: "職方外紀", a 17th-century geographical work by Giulio Aleni about the marvelous people and strange events recorded therein. It is not easy to list them one by one. Many of these curious machines are far beyond anything seen or heard of in these parts. For instance, it says that in the city of Toledo...