The word means "device" and carries the connotations of mechanical devices as well as deceptive ones. Japan adapted and transformed the Western automata, which were fascinating the likes of Descartes, giving him the incentive for his mechanist theories of organisms, and Frederick the Great, who loved playing with automatons and miniature wargames. Many were developed, mostly for entertainment purposes, ranging from tea-serving to arrow-shooting mechanisms. These ingenious mechanical toys were to become prototypes for the engines of the industrial revolution. They were powered by spring mechanisms similar to those of clocks. Clocks Mechanical clocks were introduced into Japan by Jesuit missionaries or Dutch merchants in the sixteenth century. These clocks were of the lantern clock design, typically made of brass or iron, and used the relatively primitive verge and foliot escapement. These led to the development of an original Japanese clock, called Wadokei. Neither the pendulum nor the balance spring were in use among European clocks of the period, and as such they were not included among the technologies available to the Japanese clockmakers at the start of the isolationist period in Japanese history, which began in 1641. As the length of an hour changed during winter, Japanese clock makers had to combine two clockworks in one clock. While drawing from European technology they managed to develop more sophisticated clocks, leading to spectacular developments such as the Universal Myriad year clock designed in 1850 by the inventor Tanaka Hisashige, the founder of what would become the Toshiba corporation. Pumps Air pump mechanisms became popular in Europe from around 1660 following the experiments of Boyle. In Japan, the first description of a vacuum pump appear in Aochi Rinsō (:ja:青地林宗)’s 1825 , and slightly later pressure pumps and void pumps appear in Udagawa Shinsai (宇田川榛斎(玄真))’s 1834 . These mechanisms were used to demonstrate the necessity of air for animal life and combustion, typically by putting a lamp or a small dog in a vacuum, and were used to make calculations of pressure and air density. Many practical applications were found as well, such as in the manufacture of air guns by Kunitomo Ikkansai, after he repaired and analyzed the mechanism of some Dutch air guns which had been offered to the shōgun in Edo. A vast industry of developed, also derived by Kunitomo from the mechanism of air guns, in which oil was continuously supplied through a compressed air mechanism. Kunitomo developed