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-
-    The Project Gutenberg eBook of Babbage's calculating engine
-
-This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
-at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
-you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
-before using this eBook.
-
-
-
-
-        Title: Babbage's calculating engine
-
-        Author: Charles Babbage
-
-
-        Release date: July 28, 2023 [eBook #71292]
-        Language: English
-        Original publication: United Kingdom: Adam and Charles Black, 1834
-        Credits: Laura Natal Rodrigues (Images generously made available by Hathi Trust Digital Library)
-
-
-            *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BABBAGE'S CALCULATING ENGINE ***
-
-
-
-                        THE
-                   EDINBURGH REVIEW,
-
-
-
-
-                      JULY, 1834.
-
-                        No. CXX.
-
-
-
-
-                 THE CALCULATING ENGINE
-
-
-                           BY
-
-                     CHARLES BABBAGE
-
-
-Art I.--1. _Letter to Sir Humphry Davy, Bart. P.R.S., on the application
-of Machinery to Calculate and Print Mathematical Tables_. By CHARLES
-BABBAGE, Esq. F.R.S. 4to. Printed by order of the House of Commons.
-
-2. _On the Application of Machinery to the Calculation of Astronomical and
-Mathematical Tables_. By CHARLES BABBAGE, Esq. Memoirs Astron. Soc.
-Vol. I. Part 2. London: 1822.
-
-3. _Address to the Astronomical Society, by Henry Thomas Colebrooke,
-Esq. F.R.S. President, on presenting the first gold medal of the Society
-to Charles Babbage, Esq. for the invention of the Calculating Engine_.
-Memoirs Astron. Soc. Vol. I. Part 2. London: 1822.
-
-4. _On the determination of the General Term of a new Class of Infinite
-Series_. By CHARLES BABBAGE, Esq. Transactions Camb. Phil. Soc.
-Cambridge: 1824.
-
-5. _On Errors common to many Tables of Logarithms_. By CHARLES BABBAGE,
-Esq. Memoirs Astron. Soc. London: 1827.
-
-6. _On a Method of Expressing by Signs the Action of Machinery_.
-By CHARLES BABBAGE, Esq. Phil. Trans. London: 1826.
-
-7. _Report by the Committee appointed by the Council of the Royal
-Society to consider the subject referred to in a Communication received
-by them from the Treasury, respecting Mr Babbage's Calculating Engine,
-and to report thereupon_. London: 1829.
-
-
-THERE is no position in society more enviable than that of the few who
-unite a moderate independence with high intellectual qualities.
-Liberated from the necessity of seeking their support by a profession,
-they are unfettered by its restraints, and are enabled to direct the
-powers of their minds, and to concentrate their intellectual energies on
-those objects exclusively to which they feel that their powers may be
-applied with the greatest advantage to the community, and with the most
-lasting reputation to themselves. On the other hand, their middle
-station and limited income rescue them from those allurements to
-frivolity and dissipation, to which rank and wealth ever expose their
-possessors. Placed in such favourable circumstances, Mr Babbage selected
-science as the field of his ambition; and his mathematical researches
-have conferred on him a high reputation, wherever the exact sciences are
-studied and appreciated. The suffrages of the mathematical world have
-been ratified in his own country, where he has been elected to the
-Lucasian Professorship in his own University--a chair, which, though of
-inconsiderable emolument, is one on which Newton has conferred
-everlasting celebrity. But it has been the fortune of this mathematician
-to surround himself with fame of another and more popular kind, and
-which rarely falls to the lot of those who devote their lives to the
-cultivation of the abstract sciences. This distinction he owes to the
-announcement, some years since, of his celebrated project of a
-Calculating Engine. A proposition to reduce arithmetic to the dominion
-of mechanism,--to substitute an automaton for a compositor,--to throw
-the powers of thought into wheel-work could not fail to awaken the
-attention of the world. To bring the practicability of such a project
-within the compass of popular belief was not easy: to do so by bringing
-it within the compass of popular comprehension was not possible. It
-transcended the imagination of the public in general to conceive its
-possibility; and the sentiments of wonder with which it was received,
-were only prevented from merging into those of incredulity, by the faith
-reposed in the high attainments of its projector. This extraordinary
-undertaking was, however, viewed in a very different light by the small
-section of the community, who, being sufficiently versed in mathematics,
-were acquainted with the principle upon which it was founded. By
-reference to that principle, they perceived at a glance the
-practicability of the project; and being enabled by the nature of their
-attainments and pursuits to appreciate the immeasurable importance of
-its results, they regarded the invention with a proportionately profound
-interest. The production of numerical tables, unlimited in quantity and
-variety, restricted to no particular species, and limited by no
-particular law;--extending not merely to the boundaries of existing
-knowledge, but spreading their powers over the undefined regions of
-future discovery--were results, the magnitude and the value of which the
-community in general could neither comprehend nor appreciate. In such a
-case, the judgment of the world could only rest upon the authority of
-the philosophical part of it; and the fiat of the scientific community
-swayed for once political councils. The British Government, advised by
-the Royal Society, and a committee formed of the most eminent
-mechanicians and practical engineers, determined on constructing the
-projected mechanism at the expense of the nation, to be held as national
-property.
-
-Notwithstanding the interest with which this invention has been regarded
-in every part of the world, it has never yet been embodied in a written,
-much less in a published form. We trust, therefore, that some credit
-will be conceded to us for having been the first to make the public
-acquainted with the object, principle, and structure of a piece of
-machinery, which, though at present unknown (except as to a few of its
-probable results), must, when completed, produce important effects, not
-only on the progress of science, but on that of civilisation.
-
-The calculating machinery thus undertaken for the public gratuitously
-(so far as Mr Babbage is concerned), has now attained a very advanced
-stage towards completion; and a portion of it has been put together, and
-performs various calculations;--affording a practical demonstration
-that the anticipations of those, under whose advice Government has
-acted, have been well founded.
-
-There are nevertheless many persons who, admitting the great ingenuity
-of the contrivance, have, notwithstanding, been accustomed to regard it
-more in the light of a philosophical curiosity, than an instrument for
-purposes practically useful. This mistake (than which it is not possible
-to imagine a greater) has arisen mainly from the ignorance which
-prevails of the extensive utility of those numerical tables which it is
-the purpose of the engine in question to produce. There are also some
-persons who, not considering the time requisite to bring any invention
-of this magnitude to perfection in all its details, incline to consider
-the delays which have taken place in its progress as presumptions
-against its practicability. These persons should, however, before they
-arrive at such a conclusion, reflect upon the time which was necessary
-to bring to perfection engines infinitely inferior in complexity and
-mechanical difficulty. Let them remember that--not to mention the
-_invention_ of that machine--the _improvements_ alone introduced into the
-steam-engine by the celebrated Watt, occupied a period of not less than
-twenty years of the life of that distinguished person, and involved an
-expenditure of capital amounting to L.50,000.[1] The calculating
-machinery is a contrivance new even in its details. Its inventor did not
-take it up already imperfectly formed, after having received the
-contributions of human ingenuity exercised upon it for a century or
-more. It has not, like almost all other great mechanical inventions,
-been gradually advanced to its present state through a series of
-failures, through difficulties encountered and overcome by a succession
-of projectors. It is not an object on which the light of various minds
-has thus been shed. It is, on the contrary, the production of solitary
-and individual thought,--begun, advanced through each successive stage
-of improvement, and brought to perfection by one mind. Yet this creation
-of genius, from its first rude conception to its present state, has cost
-little more than half the time, and not one-third of the expense,
-consumed in bringing the steam-engine (previously far advanced in the
-course of improvement) to that state of comparative perfection in which
-it was left by Watt. Short as the period of time has been which the
-inventor has devoted to this enterprise, it has, nevertheless, been
-demonstrated, to the satisfaction of many scientific men of the first
-eminence, that the design in all its details, reduced, as it is, to a
-system of mechanical drawings, is complete; and requires only to be
-constructed in conformity with those plans, to realize all that its
-inventor has promised.
-
-[Footnote 1: Watt commenced his investigations respecting the
-steam-engine in 1763, between which time, and the year 1782 inclusive,
-he took out several patents for improvements in details. Bolton and Watt
-had expended the above sum on their improvements before they began to
-receive any return.]
-
-With a view to remove and correct erroneous impressions, and at
-the same time to convert the vague sense of wonder at what seems
-incomprehensible, with which this project is contemplated by the public
-in general, into a more rational and edifying sentiment, it is our
-purpose in the purpose in the present article.
-
-_First_, To show, the immense importance of any method by which numerical
-tables, absolutely accurate in every individual copy, may be produced
-with facility and cheapness. This we shall establish by conveying to the
-reader some notion of the number and variety of tables published in
-every country of the world to which civilisation has extended, a large
-portion of which have been produced at the public expense; by showing
-also, that they are nevertheless rendered inefficient, to a greater or
-less extent, by the prevalence of errors in them; that these errors
-pervade not merely tables produced by individual labour and enterprise,
-but that they vitiate even those on which national resources have been
-prodigally expended, and to which the highest mathematical ability,
-which the most enlightened nations of the world could command, has been
-unsparingly and systematically directed.
-
-_Secondly_, To attempt to convey to the reader a general notion of the
-mathematical principle on which the calculating machinery is founded,
-and of the manner in which this principle is brought into practical
-operation, both in the process of calculating and printing. It would be
-incompatible with the nature of this review, and indeed impossible
-without the aid of numerous plans, sections, and elevations, to convey
-clear and precise notions of the details of the means by which the
-process of reasoning is performed by inanimate matter, and the arbitrary
-and capricious evolutions of the fingers of typographical compositors
-are reduced to a system of wheel-work. We are, nevertheless, not without
-hopes of conveying, even to readers unskilled in mathematics, some
-satisfactory notions of a general nature on this subject.
-
-_Thirdly_, To explain the actual state of the machinery a the present
-time; what progress has been made towards its completion; and what are
-the probable causes of those delays in its progress, which must be a
-subject of regret to all friends of science. We shall indicate what
-appears to us the best and most practicable course to prevent the
-unnecessary recurrence of such obstructions for the future, and to bring
-this noble project to a speedy and successful issue.
-
-
-Viewing the infinite extent and variety of the tables which have been
-calculated and printed, from the earliest periods of human civilisation
-to the present time, we feel embarrassed with the difficulties of the
-task which we have imposed on ourselves;--that of attempting to convey
-to readers unaccustomed to such speculations, any thing approaching to
-an adequate idea of them. These tables are connected with the various
-sciences, with almost every department of the useful arts, with commerce
-in all its relations; but above all, with Astronomy and Navigation. So
-important have they been considered, that in many instances large sums
-have been appropriated by the most enlightened nations in the production
-of them; and yet so numerous and insurmountable have been the
-difficulties attending the attainment of this end, that after all, even
-navigators, putting aside every other department of art and science,
-have, until very recently, been scantily and imperfectly supplied with
-the tables indispensably necessary to determine their position at sea.
-
-The first class of tables which naturally present themselves, are those
-of Multiplication. A great variety of extensive multiplication tables
-have been published from an early period in different countries; and
-especially tables of _Powers_, in which a number is multiplied by itself
-successively. In Dodson's _Calculator_ we find a table of multiplication
-extending as far as 10 times 1000.[2] In 1775, a still more extensive
-table was published to 10 times 10,000. The Board of Longitude
-subsequently employed the late Dr Hutton to calculate and print various
-numerical tables, and among others, a multiplication table extending as
-far as 100 times 1000; tables of the squares of numbers, as far as
-25,400; tables of cubes, and of the first ten powers of numbers, as far
-as 100.[3] In 1814, Professor Barlow, of Woolwich, published, in an
-octavo volume, the squares, cubes, square roots, cube roots, and
-reciprocals of all numbers from 1 to 10,000; a table of the first ten
-powers of all numbers from 1 to 100, and of the fourth and fifth powers
-of all numbers from 100 to 1000.
-
-[Footnote 2: Dodson's _Calculator_. 4to. London: 1747.]
-
-[Footnote 3: Hutton's _Tables of Products and Powers_. Folio.
-London; 1781.]
-
-Tables of Multiplication to a still greater extent have been published
-in France. In 1785, was published an octavo volume of tables of the
-squares, cubes, square roots, and cube roots of all numbers from 1 to
-10,000; and similar tables were again published in 1801. In 1817,
-multiplication tables were published in Paris by Voisin; and similar
-tables, in two quarto volumes, in 1824, by the French Board of
-Longitude, extending as far as a thousand times a thousand. A table of
-squares was published in 1810, in Hanover; in 1812, at Leipzig; in 1825,
-at Berlin; and in 1827, at Ghent. A table of cubes was published in
-1827, at Eisenach; in the same year a similar table at Ghent; and one of
-the squares of all numbers as far as 10,000, was published in that year,
-in quarto, at Bonn. The Prussian Government has caused a multiplication
-table to be calculated and printed, extending as far as 1000 times 1000.
-Such are a few of the tables of this class which have been published in
-different countries.
-
-This class of tables may be considered as purely arithmetical, since the
-results which they express involve no other relations than the
-arithmetical dependence of abstract numbers upon each other. When
-numbers, however, are taken in a concrete sense, and are applied to
-express peculiar modes of quantity,--such as angular, linear,
-superficial, and solid magnitudes,--a new set of numerical relations
-arise, and a large number of computations are required.
-
-To express angular magnitude, and the various relations of linear
-magnitude with which it is connected, involves the consideration of a
-vast variety of Geometrical and Trigonometrical tables; such as tables
-of the natural sines, co-sines, tangents, secants, co-tangents, &c. &c.;
-tables of arcs and angles in terms of the radius; tables for the
-immediate solution of various cases of triangles, &c. Volumes without
-number of such tables have been from time to time computed and
-published. It is not sufficient, however, for the purposes of
-computation to tabulate these immediate trigonometrical functions. Their
-squares[4] and higher powers, their square roots, and other roots, occur
-so frequently, that it has been found expedient to compute tables for
-them, as well as for the same functions of abstract numbers.
-
-[Footnote 4: The squares of the sines of angles are extensively used in
-the calculations connected with the theory of the tides. Not aware that
-tables of these squares existed, Bouvard, who calculated the tides for
-Laplace, underwent the labour of calculating the square of each
-individual sine in every case in which it occurred.]
-
-The measurement of linear, superficial, and solid magnitudes, in the
-various forms and modifications in which they are required in the arts,
-demands another extensive catalogue of numerical tables. The surveyor,
-the architect, the builder, the carpenter, the miner, the ganger, the
-naval architect, the engineer, civil and military, all require the aid
-of peculiar numerical tables, and such have been published in all
-countries.
-
-The increased expedition and accuracy which was introduced into the art
-of computation by the invention of Logarithms, greatly enlarged the
-number of tables previously necessary. To apply the logarithmic method,
-it was not merely necessary to place in the hands of the computist
-extensive tables of the logarithms of the natural numbers, but likewise
-to supply him with tables in which he might find already calculated the
-logarithms of those arithmetical, trigonometrical, and geometrical
-functions of numbers, which he has most frequent occasion to use. It
-would be a circuitous process, when the logarithm of a sine or co-sine
-of an angle is required, to refer, first to the table of sines, or
-co-sines, and thence to the table of the logarithms of natural numbers.
-It was therefore found expedient to compute distinct tables of the
-logarithms of the sines, co-sines, tangents, &c., as well as of various
-other functions frequently required, such as sums, differences, &c.
-
-Great as is the extent of the tables we have just enumerated, they bear
-a very insignificant proportion to those which remain to be mentioned.
-The above are, for the most part, general in their nature, not belonging
-particularly to any science or art. There is a much greater variety of
-tables, whose importance is no way inferior, which are, however, of a
-more special nature: Such are, for example, tables of interest,
-discount, and exchange, tables of annuities, and other tables necessary
-in life insurances; tables of rates of various kinds necessary in
-general commerce. But the science in which, above all others, the most
-extensive and accurate tables are indispensable, is Astronomy; with the
-improvement and perfection of which is inseparably connected that of the
-kindred art of Navigation. We scarcely dare hope to convey to the
-general reader any thing approaching to an adequate notion of the
-multiplicity and complexity of the tables necessary for the purposes of
-the astronomer and navigator. We feel, nevertheless, that the truly
-national importance which must attach to any perfect and easy means of
-producing those tables cannot be at all estimated, unless we state some
-of the previous calculations necessary in order to enable the mariner to
-determine, with the requisite certainty and precision, the place of his
-ship.
-
-In a word, then, all the purely arithmetical, trigonometrical, and
-logarithmic tables already mentioned, are necessary, either immediately
-or remotely, for this purpose. But in addition to these, a great number
-of tables, exclusively astronomical, are likewise indispensable. The
-predictions of the astronomer, with respect to the positions and motions
-of the bodies of the firmament, are the means, and the only means, which
-enable the mariner to prosecute his art. By these he is enabled to
-discover the distance of his ship from the Line, and the extent of his
-departure from the meridian of Greenwich, or from any other meridian to
-which the astronomical predictions refer. The more numerous, minute, and
-accurate these predictions can be made, the greater will be the
-facilities which can be furnished to the mariner. But the computation of
-those tables, in which the future position of celestial objects are
-registered, depend themselves upon an infinite variety of other tables
-which never reach the hands of the mariner. It cannot be said that there
-is any table whatever, necessary for the astronomer, which is
-unnecessary for the navigator.
-
-The purposes of the marine of a country whose interests are so
-inseparably connected as ours are with the improvement of the art of
-navigation, would be very inadequately fulfilled, if our navigators were
-merely supplied with the means of determining by _Nautical Astronomy_ the
-position of a ship at sea. It has been well observed by the Committee of
-the Astronomical Society, to whom the recent improvement of the Nautical
-Almanac was confided, that it is not by those means merely by which the
-seaman is enabled to determine the position of his vessel at sea, that
-the full intent and purpose of what is usually called _Nautical Astronomy_
-are answered. This object is merely a part of that comprehensive and
-important subject; and might be attained by a very cheap publication,
-and without the aid of expensive instruments. A not less important and
-much more difficult part of nautical science has for its object to
-determine the precise position of various interesting and important
-points on the surface of the earth,--such as remarkable headlands,
-ports, and islands; together with the general trending of the coast
-between well-known harbours. It is not necessary to point out here how
-important such knowledge is to the mariner. This knowledge, which may be
-called _Nautical Geography_, cannot be obtained by the methods of
-observation used on board ship, but requires much more delicate and
-accurate instruments, firmly placed upon the solid ground, besides all
-the astronomical aid which can be afforded by the best tables, arranged
-in the most convenient form for immediate use. This was Dr Maskelyne's
-view of the subject, and his opinion has been confirmed by the repeated
-wants and demands of those distinguished navigators who have been
-employed in several recent scientific expeditions.[5]
-
-[Footnote 5: Report of the Committee of the Astronomical Society prefixed
-to the Nautical Almanac for 1834.]
-
-Among the tables _directly_ necessary for navigation, are those which
-predict the position of the centre of the sun from hour to hour. These
-tables include the sun's right ascension and declination, daily, at
-noon, with the hourly change in these quantities. They also include the
-equation of time, together with its hourly variation.
-
-Tables of the moon's place for every hour, are likewise necessary,
-together with the change of declination for every ten minutes. The lunar
-method of determining the longitude depends upon tables containing the
-predicted distances of the moon from the sun, the principal planets, and
-from certain conspicuous fixed stars; which distances being observed by
-the mariner, he is enabled thence to discover the _time_ at the meridian
-from which the longitude is measured; and, by comparing that time with
-the time known or discoverable in his actual situation, he infers his
-longitude. But not only does the prediction of the position of the moon,
-with respect to these celestial objects, require a vast number of
-numerical tables, but likewise the observations necessary to be made by
-the mariner, in order to determine the lunar distances, also require
-several tables. To predict the exact position of any fixed star,
-requires not less than ten numerical tables peculiar to that star; and
-if the mariner be furnished (as is actually the case) with tables of the
-predicted distances of the moon from one hundred such stars, such
-predictions must require not less than a thousand numerical tables.
-Regarding the range of the moon through the firmament, however, it will
-readily be conceived that a hundred stars form but a scanty supply;
-especially when it is considered that an accurate method of determining
-the longitude, consists in observing the extinction of a star by the
-dark edge of the moon. Within the limits of the lunar orbit there are
-not less than one thousand stars, which are so situated as to be in the
-moon's path, and therefore to exhibit, at some period or other, those
-desirable occultations. These stars are also of such magnitudes, that
-their occultations may be distinctly observed from the deck, even when
-subject to all the unsteadiness produced by an agitated sea. To predict
-the occultations of such stars, would require not less than ten thousand
-tables. The stars from which lunar distances might be taken are still
-more numerous; and we may safely pronounce, that, great as has been the
-improvement effected recently in our Nautical Almanac, it does not yet
-furnish more than a small fraction of that aid to navigation (in the
-large sense of that term), which, with greater facility, expedition, and
-economy in the calculation and printing of tables, it might be made to
-supply.
-
-Tables necessary to determine the places of the planets are not less
-necessary than those for the sun, moon, and stars. Some notion of the
-number and complexity of these tables may be formed, when we state that
-the positions of the two principal planets, (and these the most
-necessary for the navigator,) Jupiter and Saturn, require each not less
-than one hundred and sixteen tables. Yet it is not only necessary to
-predict the position of these bodies, but it is likewise expedient to
-tabulate the motions of the four satellites of Jupiter, to predict the
-exact times at which they enter his shadow, and at which their shadows
-cross his disc, as well as the times at which they are interposed
-between him and the Earth, and he between them and the Earth.
-
-Among the extensive classes of tables here enumerated, there are several
-which are in their nature permanent and unalterable, and would never
-require to be recomputed, if they could once be computed with perfect
-accuracy on accurate data; but the data on which such computations are
-conducted, can only be regarded as approximations to truth, within
-limits the extent of which must necessarily vary with our knowledge of
-astronomical science. It has accordingly happened, that one set of
-tables after another has been superseded with each advance of
-astronomical science. Some striking examples of this may not be
-uninstructive. In 1765, the Board of Longitude paid to the celebrated
-Euler the sum of L.300, for furnishing general formulæ for the
-computation of lunar tables. Professor Mayer was employed to calculate
-the tables upon these formulæ, and the sum of L.3000 was voted for them
-by the British Parliament, to his widow, after his decease. These tables
-had been used for ten years, from 1766 to 1776, in computing the
-Nautical Almanac, when they were superseded by new and improved tables,
-composed by Mr Charles Mason, under the direction of Dr Maskelyne, from
-calculations made by order of the Board of Longitude, on the
-observations of Dr Bradley. A farther improvement was made by Mason in
-1780; but a much more extensive improvement took place in the lunar
-calculations by the publication of the tables of the Moon, by M. Bürg,
-deduced from Laplace's theory, in 1806. Perfect, however, as Bürg's
-tables were considered, at the time of their publication, they were,
-within the short period of six years, superseded by a more accurate set
-of tables published by Burckhardt in 1812; and these also have since
-been followed by the tables of Damoiseau. Professor Schumacher has
-calculated by the latter tables his ephemeris of the Planetary Lunar
-Distances, and astronomers will hence be enabled to put to the strict
-test of observation the merits of the tables of Burckhardt and
-Damoiseau.[6]
-
-[Footnote 6: A comparison of the results for 1834, will be found in the
-Nautical Almanac for 1835.]
-
-The solar tables have undergone, from time to time, similar changes. The
-solar tables of Mayer were used in the computation of the Nautical
-Almanac, from its commencement in 1767, to 1804 inclusive. Within the
-six years immediately succeeding 1804, not less than three successive
-sets of solar tables appeared, each improving on the other; the first by
-Baron de Zach, the second by Delambre, under the direction of the French
-Board of Longitude, and the third by Carlini. The last, however, differ
-only in arrangement from those of Delambre.
-
-Similar observations will be applicable to the tables of the principal
-planets. Bouvard published, in 1803, tables of Jupiter and Saturn; but
-from the improved state of astronomy, he found it necessary to recompute
-these tables in 1821.
-
-Although it is now about thirty years since the discovery of the four
-new planets, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta, it was not till recently
-that tables of their motions were published. They have lately appeared
-in Encke's Ephemeris.
-
-We have thus attempted to convey some notion (though necessarily a very
-inadequate one) of the immense extent of numerical tables which it has
-been found necessary to calculate and print for the purposes of the arts
-and sciences. We have before us a catalogue of the tables contained in
-the library of one private individual, consisting of not less than one
-hundred and forty volumes. Among these there are no duplicate copies:
-and we observe that many of the most celebrated voluminous tabular works
-are not contained among them. They are confined exclusively to
-arithmetical and trigonometrical tables; and, consequently, the myriad
-of astronomical and nautical tables are totally excluded from them.
-Nevertheless, they contain an extent of printed surface covered with
-figures amounting to above sixteen thousand square feet. We have taken
-at random forty of these tables, and have found that the number of
-errors _acknowledged_ in the respective errata, amounts to above _three
-thousand seven hundred_.
-
-To be convinced of the necessity which has existed for accurate
-numerical tables, it will only be necessary to consider at what an
-immense expenditure of labour and of money even the imperfect ones which
-we possess have been produced.
-
-To enable the reader to estimate the difficulties which attend the
-attainment even of a limited degree of accuracy, we shall now explain
-some of the expedients which have been from time to time resorted to for
-the attainment of numerical correctness in calculating and printing
-them.
-
-Among the scientific enterprises which the ambition of the French nation
-aspired to during the Republic, was the construction of a magnificent
-system of numerical tables. Their most distinguished mathematicians were
-called upon to contribute to the attainment of this important object;
-and the superintendence of the undertaking was confided to the
-celebrated Prony, who co-operated with the government in the adoption of
-such means as might be expected to ensure the production of a system of
-logarithmic and trigonometric tables, constructed with such accuracy
-that they should form a monument of calculation the most vast and
-imposing that had ever been executed, or even conceived. To accomplish
-this gigantic task, the principle of the division of labour, found to be
-so powerful in manufactures, was resorted to with singular success. The
-persons employed in the work were divided into three sections: the first
-consisted of half a dozen of the most eminent analysts. Their duty was
-to investigate the most convenient mathematical formulæ, which should
-enable the computers to proceed with the greatest expedition and
-accuracy by the method of Differences, of which we shall speak more
-fully hereafter. These formulæ, when decided upon by this first
-section, were handed over to the second section, which consisted of
-eight or ten properly qualified mathematicians. It was the duty of this
-second section to convert into numbers certain general or algebraical
-expressions which occurred in the formulæ, so as to prepare them for,
-the hands of the computers. Thus prepared, these formulæ were handed
-over to the third section, who formed a body of nearly one hundred
-computers. The duty of this numerous section was to compute the numbers
-finally intended for the tables. Every possible precaution was of course
-taken to ensure the numerical accuracy of the results. Each number was
-calculated by two or more distinct and independent computers, and its
-truth and accuracy determined by the coincidence of the results thus
-obtained.
-
-The body of tables thus calculated occupied in manuscript _seventeen_
-folio volumes.[7]
-
-[Footnote 7: These tables were never published. The printing of them was
-commenced by Didot, and a small portion was actually stereotyped, but
-never published. Soon after the commencement of the undertaking, the
-sudden fall of the assignats rendered it impossible for Didot to fulfil
-his contract with the government. The work was accordingly abandoned,
-and has never since been resumed. We have before us a copy of 100 pages
-folio of the portion which was printed at the time the work was stopped,
-given to a friend on a late occasion by Didot himself. It was remarked
-in this, as in other similar cases, that the computers who committed
-fewest errors were those who understood nothing beyond the process of
-addition.]
-
-As an example of the precautions which have been considered necessary to
-guard against errors in the calculation of numerical tables, we shall
-further state those which were adopted by Mr Babbage, previously to the
-publication of his tables of logarithms. In order to render the terminal
-figure of tables in which one or more decimal places are omitted as
-accurate as it can be, it has been the practice to compute one or more
-of the succeeding figures; and if the first omitted figure be greater
-than 4, then the terminal figure is always increased by 1, since the
-value of the tabulated number is by such means brought nearer to the
-truth.[8] The tables of Callet, which were among the most accurate
-published logarithms, and which extended to seven places of decimals,
-were first carefully compared with the tables of Vega, which extended to
-ten places, in order to discover whether Callet had made the above
-correction of the final figure in every case where it was necessary.
-This previous precaution being taken, and the corrections which appeared
-to be necessary being made in a copy of Callet's tables, the proofs of
-Mr Babbage's tables were submitted to the following test: They were
-first compared, number by number, with the corrected copy of Callet's
-logarithms; secondly, with Hutton's logarithms; and thirdly, with Vega's
-logarithms. The corrections thus suggested being marked in the proofs,
-corrected revises were received back. These revises were then again
-compared, number by number, first with Vega's logarithms; secondly, with
-the logarithms of Callet; and thirdly, as far as the first 20,000
-numbers, with the corresponding ones in Briggs's logarithms. They were
-now returned to the printer, and were stereotyped; proofs were taken
-from the stereotyped plates, which were put through the following
-ordeal: They were first compared once more with the logarithms of Vega
-as far as 47,500; they were then compared with the whole of the
-logarithms of Gardner; and next with the whole of Taylor's logarithms;
-and as a last test, they were transferred to the hands of a different
-set of readers, and were once more compared with Taylor. That these
-precautions were by no means superfluous may be collected from the
-following circumstances mentioned by Mr Babbage: In the sheets read
-immediately previous to stereotyping, thirty-two errors were detected;
-after stereotyping, eight more were found, and corrected in the plates.
-
-[Footnote 8: Thus suppose the number expressed at full length were
-3.1415927. If the table extend to no more than four places of decimals,
-we should tabulate the number 3.1416 and not 3.1415. The former would be
-evidently nearer to the true number 3.1415927.]
-
-By such elaborate and expensive precautions many of the errors of
-computation and printing may certainly be removed; but it is too much to
-expect that in general such measures can be adopted; and we accordingly
-find by far the greater number of tables disfigured by errors, the
-extent of which is rather to be conjectured than determined. When the
-nature of a numerical table is considered,--page after page densely
-covered with figures, and with nothing else,--the chances against the
-detection of any single error will be easily comprehended; and it may
-therefore be fairly presumed, that for one error which may happen to be
-detected, there must be a great number which escape detection.
-Notwithstanding this difficulty, it is truly surprising how great a
-number of numerical errors have been detected by individuals no
-otherwise concerned in the tables than in their use. Mr Baily states
-that he has himself detected in the solar and lunar tables, from which
-our Nautical Almanac was for a long period computed, more than five
-hundred errors. In the multiplication table already mentioned, computed
-by Dr Hutton for the Board of Longitude, a single page was examined and
-recomputed: it was found to contain about forty errors.
-
-In order to make the calculations upon the numbers found in the
-Ephemeral Tables published in the Nautical Almanac, it is necessary that
-the mariner should be supplied with certain permanent tables. A volume
-of these, to the number of about thirty, was accordingly computed, and
-published at national expense, by order of the Board of Longitude,
-entitled 'Tables requisite to be used with the Nautical Ephemeris for
-finding the latitude and longitude at sea.' In the first edition of
-these requisite tables, there were detected, by one individual, above a
-thousand errors.
-
-The tables published by the Board of Longitude for the correction of the
-observed distances of the moon from certain fixed stars, are followed by
-a table of acknowledged errata, extending to seven folio pages, and
-containing more than eleven hundred errors. Even this table of errata
-itself is not correct: a considerable number of errors have been
-detected in it, so that errata upon errata have become necessary.
-
-One of the tests most frequently resorted to for the detection of errors
-in numerical tables, has been the comparison of tables of the same kind,
-published by different authors. It has been generally considered that
-those numbers in which they are found to agree must be correct; inasmuch
-as the chances are supposed to be very considerable against two or more
-independent computers falling into precisely the same errors. How far
-this coincidence may be safely assumed as a test of accuracy we shall
-presently see.
-
-A few years ago, it was found desirable to compute some very accurate
-logarithmic tables for the use of the great national survey of Ireland,
-which was then, and still is in progress; and on that occasion a careful
-comparison of various logarithmic tables was made. Six remarkable errors
-were detected, which were found to be common to several apparently
-independent sets of tables. This singular coincidence led to an
-unusually extensive examination of the logarithmic tables published both
-in England and in other countries; by which it appeared that thirteen
-sets of tables, published in London between the years 1633 and 1822, all
-agreed in these six errors. Upon extending the enquiry to foreign
-tables, it appeared that two sets of tables published at Paris, one at
-Gouda, one at Avignon, one at Berlin, and one at Florence, were infected
-by exactly the same six errors. The only tables which were found free
-from them were those of Vega, and the more recent impressions of Callet.
-It happened that the Royal Society possessed a set of tables of
-logarithms printed in the Chinese character, and on Chinese paper,
-consisting of two volumes: these volumes contained no indication or
-acknowledgment of being copied from any other work. They were examined;
-and the result was the detection in them of the same six errors.[9]
-
-[Footnote 9: Memoirs Ast. Soc. vol. III, p. 65.]
-
-It is quite apparent that this remarkable coincidence of error must have
-arisen from the various tables being copied successively one from
-another. The earliest work in which they appeared was Vlacq's
-Logarithms, (folio, Gouda, 1628); and from it, doubtless, those which
-immediately succeeded it in point of time were copied; from which the
-same errors were subsequently transcribed into all the other, including
-the Chinese logarithms.
-
-The most certain and effectual check upon errors which arise in the
-process of computation, is to cause the same computations to be made by
-separate and independent computers; and this check is rendered still
-more decisive if they make their computations by different methods. It
-is, nevertheless, a remarkable fact, that several computers, working
-separately and independently, do frequently commit precisely the same
-error; so that falsehood in this case assumes that character of
-consistency, which is regarded as the exclusive attribute of truth.
-Instances of this are familiar to most persons who have had the
-management of the computation of tables. We have reason to know, that M.
-Prony experienced it on many occasions in the management of the great
-French tables, when he found three, and even a greater number of
-computers, working separately and independently, to return him the same
-numerical result, and _that result wrong_. Mr Stratford, the conductor of
-the Nautical Almanac, to whose talents and zeal that work owes the
-execution of its recent improvements, has more than once observed a
-similar occurrence. But one of the most signal examples of this kind, of
-which we are aware, is related by Mr Baily. The catalogue of stars
-published by the Astronomical Society was computed by two separate and
-independent persons, and was afterwards compared and examined with great
-care and attention by Mr Stratford. On examining this catalogue, and
-recalculating a portion of it, Mr Baily discovered an error in the case
-of the star, χ Cephei. Its right ascension was calculated _wrongly_, and
-yet _consistently_, by two computers working separately. Their numerical
-results agreed precisely in every figure; and Mr Stratford, on examining
-the catalogue, failed to detect the error. Mr Baily having reason, from
-some discordancy which he observed, to suspect an error, recomputed the
-place of the star with a view to discover it; and he himself, in the
-first instance, obtained precisely _the same erroneous numerical result_.
-It was only on going over the operation a second time that he
-_accidentally_ discovered that he had inadvertently committed the same
-error.[10]
-
-[Footnote 10: Memoirs Ast. Soc. vol. iv., p. 290.]
-
-It appears, therefore, that the coincidence of different tables, even
-when it is certain that they could not have been copied one from
-another, but must have been computed independently, is not a decisive
-test of their correctness, neither is it possible to ensure accuracy by
-the device of separate and independent computation.
-
-Besides the errors incidental to the process of computation, there are
-further liabilities in the process of transcribing the final results of
-each calculation into the fair copy of the table designed for the
-printer. The next source of error lies with the compositor, in
-transferring this copy into type. But the liabilities to error do not
-stop even here; for it frequently happens, that after the press has been
-fully corrected, errors will be produced in the process of printing. A
-remarkable instance of this occurs in one of the six errors detected in
-so many different tables already mentioned. In one of these cases, the
-last five figures of two successive numbers of a logarithmic table were
-the following:--
-
-                        35875
-                        10436.
-
-Now, both of these are erroneous; the figure 8 in the first line should
-be 4, and the figure 4 in the second should be 8. It is evident that the
-types, as first composed, were correct; but in the course of printing,
-the two types 4 and 8 being loose, adhered to the inking-balls, and were
-drawn out: the pressmen in replacing them transposed them, putting the 8
-_above_ and the 4 _below_, instead of _vice versa_. It would be a curious
-enquiry, were it possible to obtain all the copies of the original
-edition of Vlacq's Logarithms, published at Gouda in 1628, from which
-this error appears to have been copied in all the subsequent tables, to
-ascertain whether it extends through the entire edition. It would
-probably, nay almost certainly, be discovered that some of the copies of
-that edition are correct in this number, while others are incorrect; the
-former having been worked off before the transposition of the types.
-
-It is a circumstance worthy of notice, that this error in Vlacq's tables
-has produced a corresponding error in a variety of other tables deduced
-from them, _in which nevertheless the erroneous figures in Vlacq are
-omitted_. In no less than sixteen sets of tables published at various
-times since the publication of Vlacq, in which the logarithms extend
-only to seven places of figures, the error just mentioned in the _eighth
-place_ in Vlacq causes a corresponding error in the _seventh_ place. When
-the last three figures are omitted in the first of the above numbers,
-the seventh figure should be 5, inasmuch as the first of the omitted
-figures is under 5: the erroneous insertion, however, of the figure 8 in
-Vlacq has caused the figure 6 to be substituted for 5 in the various
-tables just alluded to. For the same reason, the erroneous occurrence of
-4 in the second number has caused the adoption of a 0 instead of a 1 in
-the seventh place in the other tables. The only tables in which this
-error does not occur are those of Vega, the more recent editions of
-Callet, and the still later Logarithms of Mr Babbage.
-
-The _Opus Palatinum_, a work published in 1596, containing an extensive
-collection of trigonometrical tables, affords a remarkable instance of a
-tabular error; which, as it is not generally known, it may not be
-uninteresting to mention here. After that work had been for several
-years in circulation in every part of Europe, it was discovered that the
-commencement of the table of co-tangents and co-secants was vitiated by
-an error of considerable magnitude. In the first co-tangent the last
-nine places of figures were incorrect; but from the manner in which the
-numbers of the table were computed, the error was gradually, though
-slowly, diminished, until at length it became extinguished in the
-eighty-sixth page. After the detection of this extensive error, Pitiscus
-undertook the recomputation of the eighty-six erroneous pages. His
-corrected calculation was printed, and the erroneous part of the
-remaining copies of the _Opus Palatinum_ was cancelled. But as the
-corrected table of Pitiscus was not published until 1607,--thirteen
-years after the original work,--the erroneous part of the volume was
-cancelled in comparatively few copies, and consequently correct copies
-of the work are now exceedingly rare. Thus, in the collection of tables
-published by M. Schulze,[11] the whole of the erroneous part of the _Opus
-Palatinum_ has been adopted; he having used the copy of that work which
-exists in the library of the Academy of Berlin, and which is one of
-those copies in which the incorrect part was not cancelled. The
-corrected copies of this work may be very easily distinguished at
-present from the erroneous ones: it happened that the former were
-printed with a very bad and worn-out type, and upon paper of a quality
-inferior to that of the original work. On comparing the first eighty-six
-pages of the volume with the succeeding ones, they are, therefore,
-immediately distinguishable in the corrected copies. Besides this test,
-there is another, which it may not be uninteresting to point out:--At
-the bottom of page 7 in the corrected copies, there is an error in the
-position of the words _basis_ and _hypothenusa_, their places being
-interchanged. In the original uncorrected work this error does not
-exist.
-
-[Footnote 11: _Recueil des Tables Logarithmiques et Trigonometriques_.
-Par J. C. Schulze. 2 vols. Berlin: 1778.]
-
-At the time when the calculation and publication of Taylor's Logarithms
-were undertaken, it so happened that a similar work was in progress in
-France; and it was not until the calculation of the French work was
-completed, that its author was informed of the publication of the
-English work. This circumstance caused the French calculator to
-relinquish the publication of his tables. The manuscript subsequently
-passed into the library of Delambre, and, after his death, was purchased
-at the sale of his books, by Mr Babbage, in whose possession it now is.
-Some years ago it was thought advisable to compare these manuscript
-tables with Taylor's Logarithms, with a view to ascertain the errors in
-each, but especially in Taylor. The two works were peculiarly well
-suited for the attainment of this end; as the circumstances under which
-they were produced, rendered it quite certain that they were computed
-independently of each other. The comparison was conducted under the
-direction of the late Dr Young, and the result was the detection of the
-following nineteen errors in Taylor's Logarithms. To enable those who
-used Taylor's Logarithms to make the necessary corrections in them, the
-corrections of the detected errors appeared as follows in the Nautical
-Almanac for 1832.
-
-
-ERRATA, _detected in_ Taylor's _Logarithms_. _London: 4to_, 1792.
-
-                                 °  '  "
- 1    _E_        Co-tangent of    1.35.35    _for_ 43671    _read_ 42671
- 2    _M_        Co-tangent of    4. 4.49     ---  66976     ----  66979
- 3               Sine of          4.23.38     ---  43107     ----  43007
- 4               Sine of          4.23.39     ---  43381     ----  43281
- 5    _S_        Sine of          6.45.52     ---  10001     ----  11001
- 6    _Kk_       Co-sine of      14.18. 3     ---   3398     ----   3298
- 7    _Ss_       Tangent of      18. 1.56     ---   5064     ----   6064
- 8    _Aaa_      Co-tangent of   21.11.14     ---   6062     ----   5962
- 9    _Ggg_      Tangent of      23.48.19     ---   6087     ----   5987
- 10              Co-tangent of   23.48.19     ---   3913     ----   4013
- 11   _Iii_      Sine of         25. 5. 4     ---   3173     ----   3183
- 12              Sine of         25. 5. 5     ---   3218     ----   3228
- 13              Sine of         25. 5. 6     ---   3263     ----   3273
- 14              Sine of         25. 5. 7     ---   3308     ----   3318
- 15              Sine of         25. 5. 8     ---   3353     ----   3363
- 16              Sine of         25. 5. 9     ---   3398     ----   3408
- 17   _Qqq_      Tangent of      28.19.39     ---   6302     ----   6402
- 18   _4H_       Tangent of      35.55.51     ---   1681     ----   1581
- 19   _4K_       Co-sine of      37.29. 2     ---   5503     ----   5603
-
-
-An error being detected in this list of ERRATA, we find, in the Nautical
-Almanac for the year 1833, the following ERRATUM of the ERRATA of
-Taylor's Logarithms:--
-
-'In the list of ERRATA detected in Taylor's Logarithms, for _cos_. 4°
-18' 3", read cos. 14° 18' 2".'
-
-Here, however, confusion is worse confounded; for a new error, not
-before existing, and of much greater magnitude, is introduced! It will
-be necessary, in the Nautical Almanac for 1836, (that for 1835 is
-already published,) to introduce the following:
-
-ERRATUM of the ERRATUM of the ERRATA of TAYLOR's _Logarithms_. For cos. 4°
-18' 3", _read_ cos. 14° 18' 3".
-
-If proof were wanted to establish incontrovertibly the utter
-impracticability of precluding numerical errors in works of this nature,
-we should find it in this succession of error upon error, produced, in
-spite of the universally acknowledged accuracy and assiduity of the
-persons at present employed in the construction and management of the
-Nautical Almanac. It is only by the _mechanical fabrication of tables_
-that such errors can be rendered impossible.
-
-On examining this list with attention, we have been particularly struck
-with the circumstances in which these errors appear to have originated.
-It is a remarkable fact, that of the above nineteen errors, eighteen
-have arisen from mistakes in _carrying_. Errors 5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14,
-15, 16, 17, 19, have arisen from a carriage being neglected; and errors
-1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, and 18, from a carriage being made where none should
-take place. In four cases, namely, errors 8, 9, 10, and 16, this has
-caused _two_ figures to be wrong. The only error of the nineteen which
-appears to have been a press error is the second; which has evidently
-arisen from the type 9 being accidentally inverted, and thus becoming a
-6. This may have originated with the compositor, but more probably it
-took place in the press-work; the type 9 being accidentally drawn out of
-the form by the inking-ball, as mentioned in a former case, and on being
-restored to its place, inverted by the pressman.
-
-There are two cases among the above errata, in which an error, committed
-in the calculation of one number, has evidently been the cause of other
-errors. In the third erratum, a wrong carriage was made, in computing
-the sine of 4° 23' 38". The next number of the table was vitiated
-by this error; for we find the next erratum to be in the sine of 4°
-23' 39", in which the figure similarly placed is 1 in excess. A
-still more extensive effect of this kind appears in errata 11, 12, 13,
-14, 15, 16. A carriage was neglected in computing the sine of 25° 5'
-4", and this produced a corresponding error in the five following
-numbers of the table, which are those corrected in the five following
-errata.
-
-This frequency of errors arising in the process of carrying, would
-afford a curious subject of metaphysical speculation respecting the
-operation of the faculty of memory. In the arithmetical process, the
-memory is employed in a twofold way;--in ascertaining each successive
-figure of the calculated result by the recollection of a table committed
-to memory at an early period of life; and by another act of memory, in
-which the number carried from column to column is retained. It is a
-curious fact, that this latter circumstance, occurring only the moment
-before, and being in its nature little complex, is so much more liable
-to be forgotten or mistaken than the results of rather complicated
-tables. It appears, that among the above errata, the errors 5, 7, 10,
-11, 17, 19, have been produced by the computer forgetting a carriage;
-while the errors 1, 3, 6, 8, 9, 18, have been produced by his making a
-carriage improperly. Thus, so far as the above list of errata affords
-grounds for judging, it would seem, (contrary to what might be
-expected,) that the error by which improper carriages are made is as
-frequent as that by which necessary carriages are overlooked.
-
-
-We trust that we have succeeded in proving, first, the great national
-and universal utility of numerical tables, by showing the vast number of
-them, which have been calculated and published; secondly, that more
-effectual means are necessary to obtain such tables suitable to the
-present state of the arts, sciences and commerce, by showing that the
-existing supply of tables, vast as it certainly is, is still scanty, and
-utterly inadequate to the demands of the community;--that it is
-rendered inefficient, not only in quantity, but in quality, by its want
-of numerical correctness; and that such numerical correctness is
-altogether unattainable until some more perfect method be discovered,
-not only of calculating the numerical results, but of tabulating
-these,--of reducing such tallies to type, and of printing that type so
-as to intercept the possibility of error during the press-work. Such are
-the ends which are proposed to be attained by the calculating machinery
-invented by Mr Babbage.
-
-The benefits to be derived from this invention cannot be more strongly
-expressed than they have been by Mr Colebrooke, President of the
-Astronomical Society, on the occasion of presenting the gold medal voted
-by that body to Mr Babbage:--'In no department of science, or of the
-arts, does this discovery promise to be so eminently useful as in that
-of astronomy, and its kindred sciences, with the various arts dependent
-on them. In none are computations more operose than those which
-astronomy in particular requires;--in none are preparatory facilities
-more needful;--in none is error more detrimental. The practical
-astronomer is interrupted in his pursuit, and diverted from his task of
-observation by the irksome labours of computation, or his diligence in
-observing becomes ineffectual for want of yet greater industry of
-calculation. Let the aid which tables previously computed afford, be
-furnished to the utmost extent which mechanism has made attainable
-through Mr Babbage's invention, and the most irksome portion of the
-astronomer's task is alleviated, and a fresh impulse is given to
-astronomical research.'
-
-The first step in the progress of this singular invention was the
-discovery of some common principle which pervaded numerical tables of
-every description; so that by the adoption of such a principle as the
-basis of the machinery, a corresponding degree of generality would be
-conferred upon its calculations. Among the properties of numerical
-functions, several of a general nature exist; and it was a matter of no
-ordinary difficulty, and requiring no common skill, to select one which
-might, in all respects, be preferable to the others. Whether or not that
-which was selected by Mr Babbage affords the greatest practical
-advantages, would be extremely difficult to decide--perhaps impossible,
-unless some other projector could be found possessed of sufficient
-genius, and sustained by sufficient energy of mind and character, to
-attempt the invention of calculating machinery on other principles. The
-principle selected by Mr Babbage as the basis of that part of the
-machinery which calculates, is the Method of Differences; and he has in
-fact literally thrown this mathematical principle into wheel-work. In
-order to form a notion of the nature of the machinery, it will be
-necessary, first to convey to the reader some idea of the mathematical
-principle just alluded to.
-
-A numerical table, of whatever kind, is a series of numbers which
-possess some common character, and which proceed increasing or
-decreasing according to some general law. Supposing such a series
-continually to increase, let us imagine each number in it to be
-subtracted from that which follows it, and the remainders thus
-successively obtained to be ranged beside the first, so as to form
-another table: these numbers are called the _first differences_. If we
-suppose these likewise to increase continually, we may obtain a third
-table from them by a like process, subtracting each number from the
-succeeding one: this series is called the _second differences_. By
-adopting a like method of proceeding, another series may be obtained,
-called the _third differences_; and so on. By continuing this process, we
-shall at length obtain a series of differences, of some order, more or
-less high, according to the nature of the original table, in which we
-shall find the same number constantly repeated, to whatever extent the
-original table may have been continued; so that if the next series of
-differences had been obtained in the same manner as the preceding ones,
-every term of it would be 0. In some cases this would continue to
-whatever extent the original table might be carried; but in all cases a
-series of differences would be obtained, which would continue constant
-for a very long succession of terms.
-
-As the successive serieses of differences are derived from the original
-table, and from each other, by _subtraction_, the same succession of
-series may be reproduced in the other direction by _addition_. But let us
-suppose that the first number of the original table, and of each of the
-series of differences, including the last, be given: all the numbers of
-each of the series may thence be obtained by the mere process of
-addition. The second term of the original table will be obtained by
-adding to the first the first term of the first difference series; in
-like manner, the second term of the first difference series will be
-obtained by adding to the first term, the first term of the third
-difference series, and so on. The second terms of all the serieses being
-thus obtained, the third terms may be obtained by a like process of
-addition; and so the series may be continued. These observations will
-perhaps be rendered more clearly intelligible when illustrated by a
-numerical example. The following is the commencement of a series of the
-fourth powers of the natural numbers:--
-
-                   No.     Table.
-                    1          1
-                    2         16
-                    3         81
-                    4        256
-                    5        625
-                    6       1296
-                    7       2401
-                    8       4096
-                    9       6561
-                    10    10,000
-                    11    14,641
-                    12    20,736
-                    13    28,561
-
-By subtracting each number from the succeeding one in this series, we
-obtain the following series of first differences:
-
-                          15
-                          65
-                         175
-                         369
-                         671
-                        1105
-                        1695
-                        2465
-                        3439
-                        4641
-                        6095
-                        7825
-
-In like manner, subtracting each term of this series from the succeeding
-one, we obtain the following series of second differences:--
-
-                          50
-                         110
-                         194
-                         302
-                         434
-                         590
-                         770
-                         974
-                        1202
-                        1454
-                        1730
-
-Proceeding with this series in the same way, we obtain the following
-series of third differences:--
-
-                         60
-                         84
-                        108
-                        132
-                        156
-                        180
-                        204
-                        228
-                        252
-                        276
-
-Proceeding in the same way with these, we obtain the following for the
-series of fourth differences:--
-
-                         24
-                         24
-                         24
-                         24
-                         24
-                         24
-                         24
-                         24
-                         24
-
-It appears, therefore, that in this case the series of fourth
-differences consists of a constant repetition of the number 24. Now, a
-slight consideration of the succession of arithmetical operations by
-which we have obtained this result, will show, that by reversing the
-process, we could obtain the table of fourth powers by the mere process
-of addition. Beginning with the first numbers in each successive series
-of differences, and designating the table and the successive differences
-by the letters T, D^1 D^2 D^3 D^4, we have then the following to begin
-with:--
-
-                  T   D^1   D^2   D^3   D^4
-                  1    15    50    60    24
-
-Adding each number to the number on its left, and repeating 24, we get
-the following as the second terms of the several series:--
-
-                  T   D^1   D^2   D^3   D^4
-                 16    65   110    84    24
-
-And, in the same manner, the third and succeeding terms as follows:--
-
-           No.      T     D^1    D^2    D^3    D^4
-            1       1      15     50     60     24
-            2      16      65    110     84     24
-            3      81     175    194    108     24
-            4     256     369    302    132     24
-            5     625     671    434    156     24
-            6    1296    1105    590    180     24
-            7    2401    1695    770    204     24
-            8    4096    2465    974    228     24
-            9    6561    3439   1202    252     24
-           10   10000    4641   1454    276
-           11   14641    6095   1730
-           12   20736    7825
-           13   28561
-
-There are numerous tables in which, as already stated, to whatever order
-of differences we may proceed, we should not obtain a series of
-rigorously constant differences; but we should always obtain a certain
-number of differences which to a given number of decimal places would
-remain constant for a long succession of terms. It is plain that such a
-table might be calculated by addition in the same manner as those which
-have a difference rigorously and continuously constant; and if at every
-point where the last difference requires an increase, that increase be
-given to it, the same principle of addition may again be applied for a
-like succession of terms, and so on.
-
-By this principle it appears, that all tables in which each series of
-differences continually increases, may be produced by the operation of
-addition alone; provided the first terms of the table, and of each
-series of differences, be given in the first instance. But it sometimes
-happens, that while the table continually increases, one or more
-serieses of differences may continually diminish. In this case, the
-series of differences are found by subtracting each term of the series,
-not from that which follows, but from that which precedes it; and
-consequently, in the re-production of the several serieses, when their
-first terms are given, it will be necessary in some cases to obtain them
-by _addition_, and in others by _subtraction_. It is possible, however,
-still to perform all the operations by addition alone: this is effected
-in performing the operation of subtraction, by substituting for the
-subtrahend its _arithmetical complement_, and adding that, omitting the
-unit of the highest order in the result. This process, and its
-principle, will be readily comprehended by an example. Let it be
-required to subtract 357 from 768.
-
-The common process would be as follows:--
-
-                        From       768
-                        Subtract   357
-                                  ----
-                        Remainder  411
-
-The _arithmetical complement_ of 357, or the number by which it falls
-short of 1000, is 643. Now, if this number be added to 768, and the
-first figure on the left be struck out of the sum, the process will be
-as follows:--
-
-                        To                 768
-                        Add                643
-                                          ----
-                        Sum               1411
-                                          ----
-                        Remainder sought   411
-
-The principle on which this process is founded is easily explained. In
-the latter process we have first added 643, and then subtracted 1000. On
-the whole, therefore, we have subtracted 357, since the number actually
-subtracted exceeds the number previously added by that amount.
-
-Since, therefore, subtraction may be effected in this manner by
-addition, it follows that the calculation of all serieses, so far as an
-order of differences can be found in them which continues constant, may
-be conducted by the process of addition alone.
-
-It also appears from what has been stated, that each addition consists
-only of two operations. However numerous the figures may be of which the
-several pairs of numbers to be thus added may consist, it is obvious
-that the operation of adding them can only consist of repetitions of the
-process of adding one digit to another; and of carrying one from the
-column of inferior units to the column of units next superior when
-necessary. If we would therefore reduce such a process to machinery, it
-would only be necessary to discover such a combination of moving parts
-as are capable of performing these two processes of _adding_ and _carrying_
-on two single figures; for, this being once accomplished, the process of
-adding two numbers, consisting of any number of digits, will be effected
-by repeating the same mechanism as often as there are pairs of digits to
-be added. Such was the simple form to which Mr Babbage reduced the
-problem of discovering the calculating machinery; and we shall now
-proceed to convey some notion of the manner in which he solved it.
-
-For the sake of illustration, we shall suppose that the table to be
-calculated shall consist of numbers not exceeding six places of figures;
-and we shall also suppose that the difference of the fifth order is the
-constant difference. Imagine, then, six rows of wheels, each wheel
-carrying upon it a dial-plate like that of a common clock, but
-consisting of _ten_ instead of _twelve_ divisions; the several divisions
-being marked 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0. Let these dials be supposed
-to revolve whenever the wheels to which they are attached are put in
-motion, and to turn in such a direction that the series of increasing
-numbers shall pass under the index which appears over each dial:--thus,
-after 0 passes the index, 1 follows, then 2, 3, and so on, as the dial
-revolves. In Fig. 1 are represented six horizontal rows of such dials.
-
-Fig. 1.
-
-The method of differences, as already explained, requires, that in
-proceeding with the calculation, this apparatus should perform
-continually the addition of the number expressed upon each row of dials,
-to the number expressed upon the row immediately above it. Now, we shall
-first explain how this process of addition may be conceived to be
-performed by the motion of the dials; and in doing so, we shall consider
-separately the processes of addition and carriage, considering the
-addition first, and then the carriage.
-
-Let us first suppose the line D^1 to be added to the line T. To
-accomplish this, let us imagine that while the dials on the line D^1 are
-quiescent, the dials on the line T are put in motion, in such a manner,
-that as many divisions on each dial shall pass under its index, as there
-are units in the number at the index immediately below it. It is evident
-that this condition supposes, that if be at any index on the line D^1,
-the dial immediately above it in the line T shall not move. Now the
-motion here supposed, would bring under the indices on the line T such a
-number as would be produced by adding the number D^1 to T, neglecting all
-the carriages; for a carriage should have taken place in every case in
-which the figure 9 of any dial in the line T had passed under the index
-during the adding motion. To accomplish this carriage, it would be
-necessary that the dial immediately on the left of any dial in which 9
-passes under the index, should be advanced one division, independently
-of those divisions which it may have been advanced by the addition of
-the number immediately below it. This effect may be conceived to take
-place in, either of two ways. It may be either produced at the moment
-when the division between 9 and 0 of any dial passes under the index; in
-which case the process of carrying would go on simultaneously with the
-process of adding; or the process of carrying may be postponed in every
-instance until the process of addition, without carrying, has been
-completed; and then by another distinct and independent motion of the
-machinery, a carriage may be made by advancing one division all those
-dials on the right of which a dial had, during the previous addition,
-passed from 9 to 0 under the index. The latter is the method adopted in
-the calculating machinery, in order to enable its inventor to construct
-the carrying machinery independent of the adding mechanism.
-
-Having explained the motion of the dials by which the addition,
-excluding the carriages of the number on the row D^1, may be made to the
-number on the row T, the same explanation may be applied to the number
-on the row D^2 to the number on the row D^1; also, of the number D^3 to the
-number on the row D^2, and so on. Now it is possible to suppose the
-additions of all the rows, except the first, to be made to all the rows
-except the last, simultaneously; and after these additions have been
-made, to conceive all the requisite carriages to be also made by
-advancing the proper dials one division forward. This would suppose all
-the dials in the scheme to receive their adding motion together; and,
-this being accomplished, the requisite dials to receive their carrying
-motions together. The production of so great a number of simultaneous
-motions throughout any machinery, would be attended with great
-mechanical difficulties, if indeed it be practicable. In the calculating
-machinery it is not attempted. The additions are performed in two
-successive periods of time, and the carriages in two other periods of
-time, in the following manner. We shall suppose one complete revolution
-of the axis which moves the machinery, to make one complete set of
-additions and carriages; it will then make them in the following
-order:--
-
-The first quarter of a turn of the axis will add the second, fourth, and
-sixth rows to the first, third, and fifth, omitting the carriages; this
-it will do by causing the dials on the first, third, and fifth rows, to
-turn through as many divisions as are expressed by the numbers at the
-indices below them, as already explained.
-
-The second quarter of a turn will cause the carriages consequent on the
-previous addition, to be made by moving forward the proper dials one
-division.
-
-(During these two quarters of a turn, the dials of the first, third, and
-fifth row alone have been moved; those of the second, fourth, and sixth,
-have been quiescent.)
-
-The third quarter of a turn will produce the addition of the third and
-fifth rows to the second and fourth, omitting the carriages; which it
-will do by causing the dials of the second and fourth rows to turn
-through as many divisions as are expressed by the numbers at the indices
-immediately below them.
-
-The fourth and last quarter of a turn will cause the carriages
-consequent on the previous addition, to be made by moving the proper
-dials forward one division.
-
-This evidently completes one calculation, since all the rows except the
-first have been respectively added to all the rows except the last.
-
-To illustrate this: let us suppose the table to be computed to be that
-of the fifth powers of the natural numbers, and the computation to have
-already proceeded so far as the fifth power of 6, which is 7776. This
-number appears, accordingly, in the highest row, being the place
-appropriated to the number of the table to be calculated. The several
-differences as far as the fifth, which is in this case constant, are
-exhibited on the successive rows of dials in such a manner, as to be
-adapted to the process of addition by alternate rows, in the manner
-already explained. The process of addition will commence by the motion
-of the dials in the first, third, and fifth rows, in the following
-manner: The dial A, fig. 1, must turn through one division, which will
-bring the number 7 to the index; the dial B must turn through three
-divisions, which will 0 bring to the index; this will render a carriage
-necessary, but that carriage will not take place during the present
-motion of the dial. The dial C will remain unmoved, since 0 is at the
-index below it; the dial D must turn through nine divisions; and as, in
-doing so, the division between 9 and 0 must pass under the index, a
-carriage must subsequently take place upon the dial to the left; the
-remaining dials of the row T, fig. 1, will remain unmoved. In the row D^2
-the dial A^2 will remain unmoved, since 0 is at the index below it; the
-dial B^2 will be moved through five divisions, and will render a
-subsequent carriage on the dial to the left necessary; the dial C^2 will
-be moved through five divisions; the dial D^2 will be moved through three
-divisions, and the remaining dials of this row will remain unmoved. The
-dials of the row D^4 will be moved according to the same rules; and the
-whole scheme will undergo a change exhibited in fig. 2; a mark (*) being
-introduced on those dials to which a carriage rendered necessary by the
-addition which has just taken place.
-
-Fig. 2.
-
-The second quarter of a turn of the moving axis, will move forward
-through one division all the dials which in fig. 2 are marked (*), and
-the scheme will be converted into the scheme expressed in fig. 3.
-
-Fig. 3.
-
-In third quarter of a turn, the dial A^1, fig. 3, will remain unmoved,
-since is at the index below it; the dial B^1 will be moved forward
-through three divisions; C^1 through nine divisions, and so on; and in
-like manner the dials of the row D^3 will be moved forward through the
-number of divisions expressed at the indices in the row D^4. This change
-will convert the arrangement into that expressed in fig. 4, the dials to
-which a carriage is due, being distinguished as before by (*).
-
-Fig. 4.
-
-The fourth quarter of a turn of the axis will move forward one division
-all the dials marked (*); and the arrangement will finally assume the
-form exhibited in fig. 5, in which the calculation is completed. The
-first row T in this expresses the fifth power of 7; and the second
-expresses the number which must be added to the first row, in order to
-produce the fifth power of 8; the numbers in each row being prepared for
-the change which they must undergo, in order to enable them to continue
-the computation according to the method of alternate addition here
-adopted.
-
-Fig. 5.
-
-Having thus explained what it is that the mechanism is required to do,
-we shall now attempt to convey at least a general notion of some of the
-mechanical contrivances by which the desired ends are attained. To
-simplify the explanation, let us first take one particular
-instance--the dials B and B^1, fig. 1, for example. Behind the dial B^1
-is a bolt, which, at the commencement of the process, is shot between
-the teeth of a wheel which drives the dial B: during the first quarter
-of a turn this bolt is made to revolve, and if it continued to be
-engaged in the teeth of the said wheel, it would cause the dial B to
-make a complete revolution; but it is necessary that the dial B should
-only move through three divisions, and, therefore, when three divisions
-of this dial have passed under its index, the aforesaid bolt must be
-withdrawn: this is accomplished by a small wedge, which is placed in a
-fixed position on the wheel behind the dial B^1, and that position is
-such that this wedge will press upon the bolt in such a manner, that at
-the moment when three divisions of the dial B have passed under the
-index, it shall withdraw the bolt from the teeth of the wheel which it
-drives. The bolt will continue to revolve during the remainder of the
-first quarter of a turn of the axis, but it will no longer drive the
-dial B, which will remain quiescent. Had the figure at the index of the
-dial B^1 been any other, the wedge which withdraws the bolt would have
-assumed a different position, and would have withdrawn the bolt at a
-different time, but at a time always corresponding with the number under
-the index of the dial B^1: thus, if 5 had been under the index of the
-dial B^1, then the bolt would have been withdrawn from between the teeth
-of the wheel which it drives, when five divisions of the dial B had
-passed under the index, and so on. Behind each dial in the row D^1 there
-is a similar bolt and a similar withdrawing wedge, and the action upon
-the dial above is transmitted and suspended in precisely the same
-manner. Like observations will be applicable to all the dials in the
-scheme here referred to, in reference to their adding actions upon those
-above them.
-
-There is, however, a particular case which here merits notice: it is the
-case in which 0 is under the index of the dial from which the addition
-is to be transmitted upwards. As in that case nothing is to be added, a
-mechanical provision should be made to prevent the bolt from engaging in
-the teeth of the wheel which acts upon the dial above: the wedge which
-causes the bolt to be withdrawn, is thrown into such a position as to
-render it impossible that the bolt should be shot, or that it should
-enter between the teeth of the wheel, which in other cases it drives.
-But inasmuch as the usual means of shooting the bolt would still act, a
-strain would necessarily take place in the parts of the mechanism, owing
-to the bolt not yielding to the usual impulse. A small shoulder is
-therefore provided, which puts aside, in this case, the piece by which
-the bolt is usually struck, and allows the striking implement to pass
-without encountering the head of the bolt or any other obstruction. This
-mechanism is brought into play in the scheme, fig. 1, in the cases of
-all those dials in which 0 is under the index.
-
-Such is a general description of the nature of the mechanism by which
-the adding process, apart from the carriages, is effected. During the
-first quarter of a turn, the bolts which drive the dials in the first,
-third, and fifth rows, are caused to revolve, and to act upon these
-dials, so long as they are permitted by the position of the several
-wedges on the second, fourth, and sixth rows of dials, by which these
-bolts are respectively withdrawn; and, during the third quarter of a
-turn, the bolts which drive the dials of the second and fourth rows are
-made to revolve and act upon these dials so long as the wedges on the
-dials of the third and fifth rows, which withdraw them, permit. It will
-hence be perceived, that, during the first and third quarters of a turn,
-the process of addition is continually passing upwards through the
-machinery; alternately from the even to the odd rows, and from the odd
-to the even rows, counting downwards.
-
-We shall now attempt to convey some notion of the mechanism by which the
-process of carrying is effected during the second and fourth quarters of
-a turn of the axis. As before, we shall first explain it in reference to
-a particular instance. During the first quarter of a turn the wheel B^2,
-fig. 1, is caused by the adding bolt to move through five divisions; and
-the fifth of these divisions, which passes under the index, is that
-between 9 and 0. On the axis of the wheel C^2, immediately to the left of
-B^2, is fixed a wheel, called in mechanics a ratchet wheel, which is
-driven by a claw which constantly rests in its teeth. This claw is in
-such a position as to permit the wheel C^2 to move in obedience to the
-action of the adding bolt, but to resist its motion in the contrary
-direction. It is drawn back by a spiral spring, but its recoil is
-prevented by a hook which sustains it; which hook, however, is capable
-of being withdrawn, and when withdrawn, the aforesaid spiral spring
-would draw back the claw, and make it fall through one tooth of the
-ratchet wheel. Now, at the moment that the division between 9 and 0 on
-the dial B^2 passes under the index, a thumb placed on the axis of this
-dial touches a trigger which raises out of the notch the hook which
-sustains the claw just mentioned, and allows it to fall back by the
-recoil of the spring, and to drop into the next tooth of the ratchet
-wheel. This process, however, produces no immediate effect upon the
-position of the wheel C^2, and is merely preparatory to an action
-intended to take place during the second quarter of a turn of the moving
-axis. It is in effect a memorandum taken by the machine of a carriage to
-be made in the next quarter of a turn.
-
-During the second quarter of a turn, a finger placed on the axis of the
-dial B^2 is made to revolve, and it encounters the heel of the
-above-mentioned claw. As it moves forward it drives the claw before it:
-and this claw, resting in the teeth of the ratchet wheel fixed upon the
-axis of the dial C^2 drives forward that wheel, and with it the dial. But
-the length and position of the finger which drives the claw limits its
-action, so as to move the claw forward through such a space only as will
-cause the dial C^2 to advance through a single division; at which point
-it is again caught and retained by the hook. This will be added to the
-number under its index, and the requisite carriage from B^2 to C^2 will be
-accomplished.
-
-In connexion with every dial is placed a similar ratchet wheel with a
-similar claw, drawn by a similar spring, sustained by a similar hook,
-and acted upon by a similar thumb and trigger; and therefore the
-necessary carriages, throughout the whole machinery, take place in the
-same manner and by similar means.
-
-During the second quarter of a turn, such of the carrying claws as have
-been allowed to recoil in the first, third, and fifth rows, are drawn up
-by the fingers on the axes of the adjacent dials; and, during the fourth
-quarter of a turn, such of the carrying claws on the second and fourth
-rows as have been allowed to recoil during the third quarter of a turn,
-are in like manner drawn up by the carrying fingers on the axes of the
-adjacent dials. It appears that the carriages proceed alternately from
-right to left along the horizontal rows during the second and fourth
-quarters of a turn; in the one, they pass along the first, third, and
-fifth rows, and in the other, along the second and fourth.
-
-There are two systems of waves of mechanical action continually flowing
-from the bottom to the top; and two streams of similar action constantly
-passing from the right to the left. The crests of the first system of
-adding waves fall upon the last difference, and upon every alternate one
-proceeding upwards; while the crests of the other system touch upon the
-intermediate differences. The first stream of carrying action passes
-from right to left along the highest row and every alternate tow, while
-the second stream passes along the intermediate rows.
-
-Such is a very rapid and general outline of this machinery. Its wonders,
-however, are still greater in its details than even in its broader
-features. Although we despair of doing it justice by any description
-which can be attempted here, yet we should not fulfil the duty we owe to
-our readers, if we did not call their attention at least to a few of the
-instances of consummate skill which are scattered, with a prodigality
-characteristic of the highest order of inventive genius, throughout this
-astonishing mechanism.
-
-In the general description which we have given of the mechanism for
-_carrying_, it will be observed, that the preparation for every carriage
-is stated to be made during the previous addition, by the disengagement
-of the carrying claw before mentioned, and by its consequent recoil,
-urged by the spiral spring with which it is connected; but it may, and
-does, frequently happen, that though the process of addition may not
-have rendered a carriage necessary, one carriage may itself produce the
-necessity for another. This is a contingency not provided against in the
-mechanism as we have described it: the case would occur in the scheme
-represented in fig. 1, if the figure under the index of C^2 were 4
-instead of 3. The addition of the number 5 at the index of C^3 would, in
-this case, in the first quarter of a turn, bring 9 to the index of C^2:
-this would obviously render no carriage necessary, and of course no
-preparation would be made for one by the mechanism--that is to say, the
-carrying claw of the wheel D^2 would not be detached. Meanwhile a
-carriage upon C^2 has been rendered necessary by the addition made in the
-first quarter of a turn to B^2. This carriage takes place in the ordinary
-way, and would cause the dial C^2, in the second quarter of a turn, to
-advance from 9 to 0: this would make the necessary preparation for a
-carriage from C^2 to D^2. But unless some special arrangement was made for
-the purpose, that carriage would not take place during the second
-quarter of a turn. This peculiar contingency is provided against by an
-arrangement of singular mechanical beauty, and which, at the same time,
-answers another purpose--that of equalizing the resistance opposed to
-the moving power by the carrying mechanism. The fingers placed on the
-axes of the several dials in the row D^2, do not act at the same instant
-on the carrying claws adjacent to them; but they are so placed, that
-their action may be distributed throughout the second quarter of a turn
-in regular succession. Thus the finger on the axis of the dial A^2 first
-encounters the claw upon B^2, and drives it through one tooth immediately
-forwards; the finger on the axis of B^2 encounters the claw upon C^2 and
-drives it through one tooth; the action of the finger on C^2 on the claw
-on D^2 next succeeds, and so on. Thus, while the finger on B^2 acts on C^2,
-and causes the division from 9 to 0 to pass under the index, the thumb
-on C^2 at the same instant acts on the trigger, and detaches the carrying
-claw on D^2, which is forthwith encountered by the carrying finger on C^2,
-and, driven forward one tooth. The dial D^2 accordingly moves forward one
-division, and 5 is brought under the index. This arrangement is
-beautifully effected by placing the several fingers, which act upon the
-carrying claws, _spirally_ on their axes, so that they come into action in
-regular succession.
-
-We have stated that, at the commencement of each revolution of the
-moving axis, the bolts which drive the dials of the first, third, and
-fifth rows, are shot. The process of shooting these bolts must therefore
-have taken place during the last quarter of the preceding revolution;
-but it is during that quarter of a turn that the carriages are effected
-in the second and fourth rows. Since the bolts which drive the dials of
-the first, third, and fifth rows, have no mechanical connexion with the
-dials in the second and fourth rows, there is nothing in the process of
-shooting those bolts incompatible with that of moving the dials of the
-second and fourth rows: hence these two processes may both take place
-during the same quarter of a turn. But in order to equalize the
-resistance to the moving power, the same expedient is here adopted as
-that already described in the process of carrying. The arms which shoot
-the bolts of each row of dials are arranged spirally, so as to act
-successively throughout the quarter of a turn. There is, however, a
-contingency which, under certain circumstances, would here produce a
-difficulty which must be provided against. It is possible, and in fact
-does sometimes happen, that the process of carrying causes a dial to
-move under the index from 0 to 1. In that case, the bolt, preparatory to
-the next addition, ought not to be shot until after the carriage takes
-place; for if the arm which shoots it passes its point of action before
-the carriage takes place, the bolt will be moved out of its sphere of
-action, and will not be shot, which, as we have already explained, must
-always happen when 0 is at the index: therefore no addition would in
-this case take place during the next quarter of a turn of the axis;
-whereas, since 1 is brought to the index by the carriage, which
-immediately succeeds the passage of the arm which ought to bolt, 1
-should be added during the next quarter of a turn. It is plain,
-accordingly, that the mechanism should be so arranged, that the action
-of the arms, which shoot the bolts successively, should immediately
-follow the action of those fingers which raise the carrying claws
-successively; and therefore either a separate quarter of a turn should
-be appropriated to each of those movements, or if they be executed in
-the same quarter of a turn, the mechanism must be so constructed, that
-the arms which shoot the bolts successively, shall severally follow
-immediately after those which raise the carrying claws successively. The
-latter object is attained by a mechanical arrangement of singular
-felicity, and partaking of that elegance which characterises all the
-details of this mechanism. Both sets of arms are spirally arranged on
-their respective axes, so as to be carried through their period in the
-same quarter of a turn; but the one spiral is shifted a few degrees, in
-angular position, behind the other, so that each pair of corresponding
-arms succeed each other in the most regular order,--equalizing the
-resistance, economizing time, harmonizing the mechanism, and giving to
-the whole mechanical action the utmost practical perfection.
-
-The system of mechanical contrivances by which the results, here
-attempted to be described, are attained, form only one order of
-expedients adopted in this machinery;--although such is the perfection
-of their action, that in any ordinary case they would be regarded as
-having attained the ends in view with an almost superfluous degree of
-precision. Considering, however, the immense importance of the purposes
-which the mechanism was destined to fulfil, its inventor determined that
-a higher order of expedients should be superinduced upon those already
-described; the purpose of which should be to obliterate all small errors
-or inequalities which might, even by remote possibility, arise, either
-from defects in the original formation of the mechanism, from inequality
-of wear, from casual strain or derangement,--or, in short, from any
-other cause whatever. Thus the movements of the first and principal
-parts of the mechanism were regarded by him merely as a first, though
-extremely nice approximation, upon which a system of small corrections
-was to be subsequently made by suitable and independent mechanism. This
-supplementary system of mechanism is so contrived, that if one or more
-of the moving parts of the mechanism of the first order be slightly out
-of their places, they will be forced to their exact position by the
-action of the mechanical expedients of the second order to which we now
-allude. If a more considerable derangement were produced by any
-accidental disturbance, the consequence would be that the supplementary
-mechanism would cause the whole system to become locked, so that not a
-wheel would be capable of moving; the impelling power would necessarily
-lose all its energy, and the machine would stop. The consequence of this
-exquisite arrangement is, that the machine will either calculate
-rightly, or not at all.
-
-The supernumerary contrivances which we now allude to, being in a great
-degree unconnected with each other, and scattered through the machinery
-to a certain extent, independent of the mechanical arrangement of the
-principal parts, we find it difficult to convey any distinct notion of
-their nature or form.
-
-In some instances they consist of a roller resting between certain
-curved surfaces, which has but one position of stable equilibrium, and
-that position the same, however the roller or the curved surfaces may
-wear. A slight error in the motion of the principal parts would make
-this roller for the moment rest on one of the curves; but, being
-constantly urged by a spring, it would press on the curved surface in
-such a manner as to force the moving piece on which that curved surface
-is formed, into such a position that the roller may rest between the two
-surfaces; that position being the one which the mechanism should have. A
-greater derangement would bring the roller to the crest of the curve, on
-which it would rest in instable equilibrium; and the machine would
-either become locked, or the roller would throw it as before into its
-true position.
-
-In other instances a similar object is attained by a solid cone being
-pressed into a conical seat; the position of the axis of the cone and
-that of its seat being necessarily invariable, however the cone may
-wear: and the action of the cone upon the seat being such, that it
-cannot rest in any position except that in which the axis of the cone
-coincides with the axis of its seat.
-
-Having thus attempted to convey a notion, however inadequate, of the
-calculating section of the machinery, we shall proceed to offer some
-explanation of the means whereby it is enabled, to print its
-calculations in such a manner as to preclude the possibility of error in
-any individual printed copy.
-
-On the axle of each of the wheels which express the calculated number of
-the table T, there is fixed a solid piece of metal, formed into a curve,
-not unlike the wheel in a common clock, which is called the _snail_. This
-curved surface acts against the arm of a lever, so as to raise that arm
-to a higher or lower point according to the position of the dial with
-which the snail is connected. Without entering into a more minute
-description, it will be easily understood that the snail may be so
-formed that the arm of the lever shall be raised to ten different
-elevations, corresponding to the ten figures of the dial which may be
-brought under the index. The opposite arm of the lever here described
-puts in motion a solid arch, or sector, which carries ten punches: each
-punch bearing on its face a raised character of a figure, and the ten
-punchy bearing the ten characters, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0. It will
-be apparent from what has been just stated, that this _type sector_ (as it
-is called) will receive ten different attitudes, corresponding to the
-ten figures which may successively be brought under the index of the
-dial-plate. At a point over which the type sector is thus moved, and
-immediately under a point through which it plays, is placed a frame, in
-which is fixed a plate of copper. Immediately over a certain point
-through which the type sector moves, is likewise placed a _bent lever_,
-which, being straightened, is forcibly pressed upon the punch which has
-been brought under it. If the type sector be moved, so as to bring under
-the bent lever one of the steel punches above mentioned, and be held in
-that position for a certain time, the bent lever, being straightened,
-acts upon the steel punch, and drives it against the face of the copper
-beneath, and thus causes a sunken impression of the character upon the
-punch to be left upon the copper. If the copper be now shifted slightly
-in its position, and the type sector be also shifted so as to bring
-another punch under the bent lever, another character may be engraved on
-the copper by straightening the bent lever, and pressing it on the punch
-as before. It will be evident, that if the copper was shifted from right
-to left through a space equal to two figures of a number, and, at the
-same time, the type sector so shifted as to bring the punches
-corresponding to the figures of the number successively under the bent
-lever, an engraved impression of the number might thus be obtained upon
-the copper by the continued action of the bent lever. If, when one line
-of figures is thus obtained, a provision be made to shift the copper in
-a direction at right angles to its former motion, through a space equal
-to the distance between two lines of figures, and at the same time to
-shift it through a space in the other direction equal to the length of
-an entire line, it will be evident that another line of figures might be
-printed below the first in the same manner.
-
-The motion of the type sector, here described, is accomplished by the
-action of the snail upon the lever already mentioned. In the case where
-the number calculated is that expressed in fig. 1, the process would be
-as follows:--The snail of the wheel F^1, acting upon the lever, would
-throw the type sector into such an attitude, that the punch bearing the
-character 0 would come under the bent lever. The next turn of the moving
-axis would cause the bent lever to press on the tail of the punch, and
-the character 0 would be impressed upon the copper. The bent lever being
-again drawn up, the punch would recoil from the copper by the action of
-a spring; the next turn of the moving axis would shift the copper
-through the interval between two figures, so as to bring the point
-destined to be impressed with the next figure under the bent lever. At
-the same time, the snail of the wheel E would cause the type sector to
-be thrown into the same attitude as before, and the punch would be
-brought under the bent lever; the next turn would impress the figure
-beside the former one, as before described. The snail upon the wheel D
-would now come into action, and throw the type sector into that position
-in which the punch bearing the character 7 would come under the bent
-lever, and at the same time the copper would be shifted through the
-interval between two figures; the straightening of the lever would next
-follow, and the character 7 would be engraved. In the same manner, the
-wheels C, B, and A would successively act by means of their snails; and
-the copper being shifted, and the lever allowed to act, the number
-007776 would be finally engraved upon the copper: this being
-accomplished, the calculating machinery would next be called into
-action, and another calculation would be made, producing the next number
-of the Table exhibited in fig. 5. During this process the machinery
-would be engaged in shifting the copper both in the direction of its
-length and its breadth, with a view to commence the printing of another
-line; and this change of position would be accomplished at the moment
-when the next calculation would be completed: the printing of the next
-number would go on like the former, and the operation of the machine
-would proceed in the same manner, calculating and printing alternately.
-It is not, however, at all necessary--though we have here supposed it,
-for the sake of simplifying the explanation--that the calculating part
-of the mechanism should have its action suspended while the printing
-part is in operation, or _vice versa_; it is not intended, in fact, to be
-so suspended in the actual machinery. The same turn of the axis by which
-one number is printed, executes a part of the movements necessary for
-the succeeding calculation; so that the whole mechanism will be
-simultaneously and continuously in action.
-
-Of the mechanism by which the position of the copper is shifted from
-figure to figure, from line to line, we shall not attempt any
-description. We feel that it would be quite vain. Complicated and
-difficult to describe as every other part of this machinery is, the
-mechanism for moving the copper is such as it would be quite impossible
-to render at all intelligible, without numerous illustrative drawings.
-
-The engraved plate of copper obtained in the manner above described, is
-designed to be used as a mould from which a stereotyped plate may be
-cast; or, if deemed advisable, it may be used as the immediate means of
-printing. In the one case we should produce a table, printed from type,
-in the same manner as common letter-press printing; in the other an
-engraved table. If it be thought most advisable to print from the
-stereotyped plates, then as many stereotyped plates as may be required
-may be taken from the copper mould; so that when once a table has been
-calculated and engraved by the machinery, the whole world may be
-supplied with stereotyped plates to print it, and may continue to be so
-supplied for an unlimited period of time. There is no practical limit to
-the number of stereotyped plates which may be taken from the engraved
-copper; and there is scarcely any limit to the number of printed copies
-which may be taken from any single stereotyped plate. Not only,
-therefore, is the numerical table by these means engraved and
-stereotyped with infallible accuracy, but such stereotyped plates are
-producible in unbounded quantity. Each plate, when produced, becomes
-itself the means of producing printed copies of the table, in accuracy
-perfect, and in number without limit.
-
-Unlike all other machinery, the calculating mechanism produces, not the
-object of consumption, but the machinery by which that object may be
-made. To say that it computes and prints with infallible accuracy, is to
-understate its merits:--it computes and fabricates _the means_ of
-printing with absolute correctness and in unlimited abundance.
-
-For the sake of clearness, and to render ourselves more easily
-intelligible to the general reader, we have in the preceding explanation
-thrown the mechanism into an arrangement somewhat different from that
-which is really adopted. The dials expressing the numbers of the tables
-of the successive differences are not placed, as we have supposed them,
-in horizontal rows, and read from right to left, in the ordinary way;
-they are, on the contrary, placed vertically, one below the other, and
-read from top to bottom. The number of the table occupies the first
-vertical column on the right, the units being expressed on the lowest
-dial, and the tens on the next above that, and so on. The first
-difference occupies the next vertical column on the left; and the
-numbers of the succeeding differences occupy vertical columns,
-proceeding regularly to the left; the constant difference being on the
-last vertical column. It is intended in the machine now in progress to
-introduce six orders of differences, so that there will be seven columns
-of dials; it is also intended that the calculations shall extend to
-eighteen places of figures: thus each column will have eighteen dials.
-We have referred to the dials as if they were inscribed upon the faces
-of wheels, whose axes are horizontal and planes vertical. In the actual
-machinery the axes are vertical and the planes horizontal, so that the
-edges of the _figure wheels_, as they are called, are presented to the
-eye. The figures are inscribed, not upon the dial-plate, but around the
-surface of a small cylinder or barrel, placed upon the axis of the
-figure wheel, which revolves with it; so that as the figure wheel
-revolves, the figures on the barrel are successively brought to the
-front, and pass under an index engraved upon a plate of metal
-immediately above the barrel. This arrangement has the obvious practical
-advantage, that, instead of each figure wheel having a separate axis,
-all the figure wheels of the same vertical column revolve on the same
-axis; and the same observation will apply to all the wheels with which
-the figure wheels are in mechanical connexion. This arrangement has the
-further mechanical advantage over that which has been assumed for the
-purposes of explanation, that the friction of the wheel-work on the axes
-is less in amount, and more uniformly distributed, than it could be if
-the axes were placed in the horizontal position.
-
-A notion may therefore be formed of the front elevation of the
-calculating part of the mechanism, by conceiving seven steel axes
-erected, one beside another, on each of which shall be placed eighteen
-wheels,[12] five inches in diameter, having cylinders or barrels upon
-them an inch and a half in height, and inscribed, as already stated,
-with the ten arithmetical characters. The entire elevation of the
-machinery would occupy a space measuring ten feet broad, ten feet high,
-and five feet deep. The process of calculation would be observed by the
-alternate motion of the figure wheels on the several axes. During the
-first quarter of a turn, the wheels on the first, third, and fifth axes
-would turn, receiving their addition from the second, fourth, and sixth;
-during the second quarter of a turn, such of the wheels on the first,
-third, and fifth axes, to which carriages are due, would be moved
-forward one additional figure; the second, fourth, and sixth columns of
-wheels being all this time quiescent. During the third quarter of a
-turn, the second, fourth, and sixth columns would be observed to move,
-receiving their additions from the third, fifth, and seventh axes; and
-during the fourth quarter of a turn, such of these wheels to which
-carriages are due, would be observed to move forward one additional
-figure; the wheels of the first, third, and fifth columns being
-quiescent during this time.
-
-[Footnote 12: The wheels, and every other part of the mechanism except
-the axes, springs, and such parts as are necessarily of steel, are
-formed of an alloy of copper with a small portion of tin.]
-
-It will be observed that the wheels of the seventh column are always
-quiescent in this process; and it may be asked, of what use they are,
-and whether some mechanism of a fixed nature would not serve the same
-purpose? It must, however, be remembered, that for different tables
-there will be different constant differences; and that when the
-calculation of a table is about to commence, the wheels on the seventh
-axis must be moved by the hand, so as to express the constant
-difference, whatever it may be. In tables, also, which have not a
-difference rigorously constant, it will be necessary, after a certain
-number of calculations, to change the constant difference by the hand;
-and in this case the wheels of the seventh axis must be moved when
-occasion requires. Such adjustment, however, will only be necessary at
-very distant intervals, and after a considerable extent of printing and
-calculation has taken place; and when it is necessary, a provision is
-made in the machinery by which notice will be given by the sounding of a
-bell, so that the machine may not run beyond the extent of its powers of
-calculation.
-
-Immediately behind the seven axes on which the figure wheels revolve,
-are seven other axes; on which are placed, first, the wheels already
-described as driven by the figure wheels, and which bear upon them the
-wedge which withdraws the bolt immediately over these latter wheels, and
-on the same axis is placed the adding bolt. From the bottom of this bolt
-there projects downwards the pin, which acts upon the unbolting wedge by
-which the bolt is withdrawn: from the upper surface of the bolt proceeds
-a tooth, which, when the bolt is shot, enters between the teeth of the
-adding wheel, which turns on the same axis, and is placed immediately
-above the bolt: its teeth, on which the bolt acts, are like the teeth of
-a crown wheel, and are presented downwards. The bolt is fixed upon this
-axis, and turns with it; but the adding wheel above the bolt, and the
-unbolting wheel below it, both turn upon the axis, and independently of
-it. When the axis is made to revolve by the moving power, the bolt
-revolves with it; and so long as the tooth of the bolt remains inserted
-between those of the adding wheel, the latter is likewise moved; but
-when the lower pin of the bolt encounters the unbolting wedge on the
-lower wheel, the tooth of the bolt is withdrawn, and the motion of the
-adding wheel is stopped. This adding wheel is furnished with spur teeth,
-besides the crown teeth just mentioned; and these spur teeth are engaged
-with those of that unbolting wheel which is in connexion with the
-adjacent figure wheel to which the addition is to be made. By such an
-arrangement it is evident that the revolution of the bolt will
-necessarily add to the adjacent figure wheel the requisite number.
-
-It will be perceived, that upon the same axis are placed an unbolting
-wheel, a bolt, and an adding wheel, one above the other, for every
-figure wheel; and as there are eighteen figure wheels there will be
-eighteen tiers; each tier formed of an unbolting wheel, a bolt, and an
-adding wheel, placed one above the other; the wheels on this axis all
-revolving independent of the axis, but the bolts being all fixed upon
-it. The same observations, of course, will apply to each of the seven
-axes.
-
-At the commencement of every revolution of the adding axes, it is
-evident that the several bolts placed upon them must be shot in order to
-perform the various additions. This is accomplished by a third set of
-seven axes, placed at some distance behind the range of the wheels,
-which turn upon the adding axes: these are called _bolting axes_. On these
-bolting axes are fixed, so as to revolve with them, a bolting finger
-opposite to each bolt; as the bolting axis is made to revolve by the
-moving power, the bolting finger is turned, and as it passes near the
-bolt, it encounters the shoulder of a hammer or lever, which strikes the
-heel of the bolt, and presses it forward so as to shoot its tooth
-between the crown teeth of the adding wheel. The only exception to this
-action is the case in which happens to be at the index of the figure
-wheel; in that case, the lever or hammer, which the bolting finger would
-encounter, is, as before stated, lifted out of the way of the bolting
-finger, so that it revolves without encountering it. It is on the
-bolting axes that the fingers are spirally arranged so as to equalize
-their action, as already explained.
-
-The same axes in the front of the machinery on which the figure wheels
-turn, are made to serve the purpose of _carrying_. Each of these bear a
-series of fingers which turn with them, and which encounter a carrying
-claw, already described, so as to make the carriage: these carrying
-fingers are also spirally arranged on their axes, as already described.
-
-Although the absolute accuracy which appears to be ensured by the
-mechanical arrangements here described is such as to render further
-precautions nearly superfluous, still it may be right to state, that,
-supposing it were possible for an error to be produced in calculation,
-this error could be easily and speedily detected in the printed tables:
-it would only be necessary to calculate a number of the table taken at
-intervals, through which the mechanical action of the machine has not
-been suspended, and during which it has received no adjustment by the
-hand: if the computed number be found to agree with those printed, it
-may be taken for granted that all the intermediate numbers are correct;
-because, from the nature of the mechanism, and the principle of
-computation, an error occurring in any single number of the table would
-be unavoidably entailed, in an increasing ratio, upon all the succeeding
-numbers.
-
-We have hitherto spoken merely of the practicability of executing by the
-machinery, when completed, that which its inventor originally
-contemplated--namely, the calculating and printing of all numerical
-tables, derived by the method of differences from a constant difference.
-It has, however, happened that the actual powers of the machinery
-greatly transcend those contemplated in its original design:--they not
-only have exceeded the most sanguine anticipations of its inventor, but
-they appear to have an extent to which it is utterly impossible, even
-for the most acute mathematical thinker, to fix a probable limit.
-Certain subsidiary mechanical inventions have, in the progress of the
-enterprise, been, by the very nature of the machinery, suggested to the
-mind of the inventor, which confer upon it capabilities which he had
-never foreseen. It would be impossible even to enumerate, within the
-limits of this article, much less to describe in detail, those
-extraordinary mechanical arrangements, the effects of which have not
-failed to strike with astonishment every one who has been favoured with
-an opportunity of witnessing them, and who has been enabled, by
-sufficient mathematical attainments, in any degree to estimate their
-probable consequences.
-
-As we have described the mechanism, the axes containing the several
-differences are successively and regularly added one to another; but
-there are certain mechanical adjustments, and these of a very simple
-nature, which being thrown into action, will cause a difference of any
-order to be added any number of times to a difference of any other
-order; and that either proceeding backwards or forwards, from a
-difference of an inferior to one of a superior order, and _vice versa_.[13]
-
-[Footnote 13: The machine was constructed with the intention of tabulating
-the equation Delta^{7}_{u} = 0, but, by the means
-above alluded to, it is capable of tabulating such equations as the
-following: Delta^{7}u = a Delta u, Delta^{7}u = aDelta^{3}u,
-Delta^{7}u = units figure of Delta u.]
-
-Among other peculiar mechanical provisions in the machinery is one by
-which, when the table for any order of difference amounts to a certain
-number, a certain arithmetical change would be made in the constant
-difference. In this way a series may be tabulated by the machine, in
-which the constant difference is subject to periodical change; or the
-very nature of the table itself may be subject to periodical change, and
-yet to one which has a regular law.
-
-Some of these subsidiary powers are peculiarly applicable to
-calculations required in astronomy, and are therefore of eminent and
-immediate practical utility: others there are by which tables are
-produced, following the most extraordinary, and apparently capricious,
-but still regular laws. Thus a table will be computed, which, to any
-required extent, shall coincide with a given table, and which shall
-deviate from that table for a single term, or for any required number of
-terms, and then resume its course, or which shall permanently alter the
-law of its construction. Thus the engine has calculated a table which
-agreed precisely with a table of square numbers, until it attained the
-hundred and first term, which was not the square of 101, nor were any of
-the subsequent numbers squares. Again, it has computed a table which
-coincided with the series of natural numbers, as far as 100,000,001, but
-which subsequently followed another law. This result was obtained, not
-by working the engine through the whole of the first table, for that
-would have required an enormous length of time; but by showing, from the
-arrangement of the mechanism, that it must continue to exhibit the
-succession of natural numbers, until it would reach 100,000,000. To save
-time, the engine was set by the hand to the number 99999995, and was
-then put in regular operation. It produced successively the following
-numbers.[14]
-
-                   99,999,996
-                   99,999,997
-                   99,999,998
-                   99,999,999
-                  100,000,000
-                  100,010,002
-                  100,030,003
-                  100,060,004
-                  100,100,005
-                  100,150,006
-                    &c. &c.
-
-[Footnote 14: Such results as this suggest a train of reflection on the
-nature and operation of general laws, which would lead to very curious
-and interesting speculations. The natural philosopher and astronomer
-will be hardly less struck with them than the metaphysician and
-theologian.]
-
-Equations have been already tabulated by the portion of the machinery
-which has been put together, which are so far beyond the reach of the
-present power of mathematics, that no distant term of the table can be
-predicted, nor any function discovered capable of expressing its general
-law. Yet the very fact of the table being produced by mechanism of an
-invariable form, and including a distinct principle of mechanical
-action, renders it quite manifest that _some_ general law must exist in
-every table which it produces. But we must dismiss these speculations:
-we feel it impossible to stretch the powers of our own mind, so as to
-grasp the probable capabilities of this splendid production of combined
-mechanical and mathematical genius; much less can we hope to enable
-others to appreciate them, without being furnished with such means of
-comprehending them as those with which we have been favoured. Years must
-in fact elapse, and many enquirers direct their energies to the
-cultivation of the vast field of research thus opened, before we can
-fully estimate the extent of this triumph of matter over mind. 'Nor is
-it,' says Mr Colebrooke, 'among the least curious results of this
-ingenious device, that it affords a new opening for discovery, since it
-is applicable, as has been shown by its inventor, to surmount novel
-difficulties of analysis. Not confined to constant differences, it is
-available in every case of differences that follow a definite law,
-reducible therefore to an equation. An engine adjusted to the purpose
-being set to work, will produce any distant term, or succession of
-terms, required--thus presenting the numerical solution of a problem,
-even though the analytical solution be yet undetermined.' That the
-future path of some important branches of mathematical enquiry must now
-in some measure be directed by the dictates of mechanism, is
-sufficiently evident; for who would toil on in any course of analytical
-enquiry, in which he must ultimately depend on the expensive and
-fallible aid of human arithmetic, with an instrument in his hands, in
-which all the dull monotony of numerical computation is turned over to
-the untiring action and unerring certainty of mechanical agency?
-
-It is worth notice, that each of the axes in front of the machinery on
-which the figure wheels revolve, is connected with a bell, the tongue of
-which is governed by a system of levers, moved by the several figure
-wheels; an adjustment is provided by which the levers shall be
-dismissed, so as to allow the hammer to strike against the bell,
-whenever any proposed number shall be exhibited on the axis. This
-contrivance enables the machine to give notice to its attendants at any
-time that an adjustment may be required.
-
-Among a great variety of curious accidental properties (so to speak)
-which the machine is found to possess, is one by which it is capable of
-solving numerical equations which have rational roots. Such an equation
-being reduced (as it always may be) by suitable transformations to that
-state in which the roots shall be whole numbers, the values 0, 1, 2, 3,
-&c., are substituted for the unknown quantity, and the corresponding
-values of the equation ascertained. From these a sufficient number of
-differences being derived, they are set upon the machine. The machine
-being then put in motion, the table axis will exhibit the successive
-values of the formula, corresponding to the substitutions of the
-successive whole numbers for the unknown quantity: at length the number
-exhibited on the table axis will be 0, which will evidently correspond
-to a root of the equation. By previous adjustment, the bell of the table
-axis will in this case ring and give notice of the exhibition of the
-value of the root in another part of the machinery.
-
-If the equation have imaginary roots, the formula being necessarily a
-maximum or minimum on the occurrence of such roots, the first difference
-will become nothing; and the dials of that axis will under such
-circumstances present to the respective indices. By previous adjustment,
-the bell of this axis would here give notice of a pair of imaginary
-roots.
-
-Mr Colebrooke speculates on the probable extension of these powers of
-the machine: 'It may not therefore be deemed too sanguine an
-anticipation when I express the hope that an compliment which, in its
-simpler form, attains to the extraction of roots of numbers, and
-approximates to the roots of equations, may, in a more advanced state of
-improvement, rise to the approximate solution of algebraic equations of
-elevated degrees. I refer to solutions of such equations proposed by La
-Grange, and more recently by other annalists, which involve operations
-too tedious and intricate for use, and which must remain without
-efficacy, unless some mode be devised of abridging the labour, or
-facilitating the means of its performance. In any case this engine tends
-to lighten the excessive and accumulating burden of arithmetical
-application of mathematical formulæ, and to relieve the progress of
-science from what is justly termed by the author of this invention, the
-overwhelming encumbrance of numerical detail.'
-
-Although there are not more than eighteen figure wheels on each axis,
-and therefore it might be supposed that the machinery was capable of
-calculating only to the extent of eighteen decimal places; yet there are
-contrivances connected with it, by which, in two successive
-calculations, it will be possible to calculate even to the extent of
-thirty decimal places. Its powers, therefore, in this respect, greatly
-exceed any which can be required in practical science. It is also
-remarkable, that the machinery is capable of producing the calculated
-results _true to the last figure_. We have already explained, that when
-the figure which would follow the last is greater than 4, then it would
-be necessary to increase the last figure by 1; since the excess of the
-calculated number above the true value would in such case be less than
-its defect from it would be, had the regularly computed final figure
-been adopted: this is a precaution necessary in all numerical tables,
-and it is one which would hardly have been expected to be provided for
-in the calculating machinery.
-
-As might be expected in a mechanical undertaking of such complexity and
-novelty, many practical difficulties have since its commencement been
-encountered and surmounted. It might have been foreseen, that many
-expedients would be adopted and carried into effect, which farther
-experiments would render it necessary to reject; and thus a large source
-of additional expense could scarcely fail to be produced. To a certain
-extent this has taken place; but owing to the admirable system of
-mechanical drawings, which in every instance Mr Babbage has caused to be
-made, and owing to his own profound acquaintance with the practical
-working of the most complicated mechanism, he has been able to predict
-in every case what the result of any contrivance would be, as perfectly
-from the drawing, as if it had been reduced to the form of a working
-model. The drawings, consequently, form a most extensive and essential
-part of the enterprise. They are executed with extraordinary ability and
-precision, and may be considered as perhaps the best specimens of
-mechanical drawings which have ever been executed. It has been on these,
-and on these only, that the work of invention has been bestowed. In
-these, all those progressive modifications suggested by consideration
-and study have been made; and it was not until the inventor was fully
-satisfied with the result of any contrivance, that he had it reduced to
-a working form. The whole of the loss which has been incurred by the
-necessarily progressive course of invention, has been the expense of
-rejected drawings. Nothing can perhaps more forcibly illustrate the
-extent of labour and thought which has been incurred in the production
-of this machinery, than the contemplation of the working drawings which
-have been executed previously to its construction: these drawings cover
-above a thousand square feet of surface, and many of them are of the
-most elaborate and complicated description.
-
-One of the practical difficulties which presented themselves at a very
-early stage in the progress of this undertaking, was the impossibility
-of bearing in mind all the variety of motions propagated simultaneously
-through so many complicated trains of mechanism. Nothing but the utmost
-imaginable harmony and order among such a number of movements, could
-prevent obstructions arising from incompatible motions encountering each
-other. It was very soon found impossible, by a mere act of memory, to
-guard against such an occurrence; and Mr Babbage found, that, without
-some effective expedient by which he could at a glance see what every
-moving piece in the machinery was doing at each instant of time, such
-inconsistencies and obstructions as are here alluded to must continually
-have occurred. This difficulty was removed by another invention of even
-a more general nature than the calculating machinery itself, and
-pregnant with results probably of higher importance. This invention
-consisted in the contrivance of a scheme of _mechanical notation_ which is
-generally applicable to all machinery whatsoever; and which is exhibited
-on a table or plan consisting of two distinct sections. In the first is
-traced, by a peculiar system of signs, the origin of every motion which
-takes place throughout the machinery; so that the mechanist or inventor
-is able, by moving his finger along a certain line, to follow out the
-motion of every piece from effect to cause, until he arrives at the
-prime mover. The same sign which thus indicates the _source_ of motion
-indicates likewise the _species_ of motion, whether it be continuous or
-reciprocating, circular or progressive, &c. The same system of signs
-further indicates the nature of the mechanical connexion between the
-mover and the thing moved, whether it be permanent and invariable (as
-between the two arms of a lever), or whether the mover and the moved are
-separate and independent pieces, as is the case when a pinion drives a
-wheel; also whether the motion of one piece necessarily implies the
-motion of another; or when such motion in the one is interrupted, and in
-the other continuous, &c.
-
-The second section of the table divides the time of a complete period of
-the machinery into any required number of parts; and it exhibits in a
-map, as it were, that which every part of the machine is doing at each
-moment of time. In this way, incompatibility in the motions of different
-parts is rendered perceptible at a glance. By such means the contriver
-of machinery is not merely prevented from introducing into one part of
-the mechanism any movement inconsistent with the simultaneous action of
-the other parts; but when he finds that the introduction of any
-particular movement is necessary for his purpose, he can easily and
-rapidly examine the whole range of the machinery during one of its
-periods, and can find by inspection whether there is any, and what
-portion of time, at which no motion exists incompatible with the desired
-one, and thus discover a _niche_, as it were, in which to place the
-required movement. A further and collateral advantage consists in
-placing it in the power of the contriver to exercise the utmost possible
-economy of _time_ in the application of his moving power. For example,
-without some instrument of mechanical enquiry equally powerful with that
-now described, it would be scarcely possible, at least in the first
-instance, so to arrange the various movements that they should be all
-executed in the least possible number of revolutions of the moving axis.
-Additional revolutions would almost inevitably be made for the purpose
-of producing movements and changes which it would be possible to
-introduce in some of the phases of previous revolutions: and there is no
-one acquainted with the history of mechanical invention who must not be
-aware, that in the progressive contrivance of almost every machine the
-earliest arrangements are invariably defective in this respect; and that
-it is only by a succession of improvements, suggested by long
-experience, that that arrangement is at length arrived at, which
-accomplishes all the necessary motions in the shortest possible time. By
-the application of the mechanical notation, however, absolute perfection
-may be arrived at in this respect; even before a single part of the
-machinery is constructed, and before it has any other existence than
-that which it obtains upon paper.
-
-Examples of this class of advantages derivable from the notation will
-occur to the mind of every one acquainted with the history of mechanical
-invention. In the common suction-pump, for example, the effective agency
-of the power is suspended during the descent of the piston. A very
-simple contrivance, however, will transfer to the descent the work to be
-accomplished in the next ascent; so that the duty of four strokes of the
-piston may thus be executed in the time of two. In the earlier
-applications of the steam-engine, that machine was applied almost
-exclusively to the process of pumping; and the power acted only during
-the descent of the piston, being suspended during its ascent. When,
-however, the notion of applying the engine to the general purposes of
-manufacture occurred to the mind of Watt, he saw that it would be
-necessary to cause it to produce a continued rotatory motion; and,
-therefore, that the intervals of intermission must be filled up by the
-action of the power. He first proposed to accomplish this by a second
-cylinder working alternately with the first; but it soon became apparent
-that the blank which existed during the upstroke in the action of the
-power, might be filled up by introducing the steam at both ends of the
-cylinder alternately. Had Watt placed before him a scheme of mechanical
-notation such as we allude to, this expedient would have been so
-obtruded upon him that he must have adopted it from the first.
-
-One of the circumstances from which the mechanical notation derives a
-great portion of its power as an instrument of investigation and
-discovery, is that it enables the inventor to dismiss from his thoughts,
-and to disencumber his imagination of the arrangement and connexion of
-the mechanism; which, when it is very complex (and it is in that case
-that the notation is most useful), can only be kept before the mind by
-an embarrassing and painful effort. In this respect the powers of the
-notation may not inaptly be illustrated by the facilities derived in
-complex and difficult arithmetical questions from the use of the
-language and notation of algebra. When once the peculiar conditions of
-the question are translated into algebraical signs, and 'reduced to an
-equation,' the computist dismisses from his thoughts all the
-circumstances of the question, and is relieved from the consideration of
-the complicated relations of the quantities of various kinds which may
-have entered it. He deals with the algebraical symbols, which are the
-representatives of those quantities and relations, according to certain
-technical rules of a general nature, the truth of which he has
-previously established; and, by a process almost mechanical, he arrives
-at the required result. What algebra is to arithmetic, the notation we
-now allude to is to mechanism. The various parts of the machinery under
-consideration being once expressed upon paper by proper symbols, the
-enquirer dismisses altogether from his thoughts the mechanism itself,
-and attends only to the symbols; the management of which is so extremely
-simple and obvious, that the most unpractised person, having once
-acquired an acquaintance with the signs, cannot fail to comprehend their
-use.
-
-A remarkable instance of the power and utility of this notation occurred
-in a certain stage of the invention of the calculating machinery. A
-question arose as to the best method of producing and arranging a
-certain series of motions necessary to print and calculate a number. The
-inventor, assisted by a practical engineer of considerable experience
-and skill, had so arranged these motions, that the whole might be
-performed by twelve revolutions of the principal moving axis. It seemed,
-however, desirable, if possible, to execute these motions by a less
-number of revolutions. To accomplish this, the engineer sat down to
-study the complicated details of a part of the machinery which had been
-put together; the inventor at the same time applied himself to the
-consideration of the arrangement and connexion of the symbols in his
-scheme of notation. After a short time, by some transposition of
-symbols, he caused the received motions to be completed by eight turns
-of the axis. This he accomplished by transferring the symbols which
-occupied the last four divisions of his scheme, into such blank spaces
-as he could discover in the first eight divisions; due care being taken
-that no symbols should express actions at once simultaneous and
-incompatible. Pushing his enquiry, however, still further, he proceeded
-to ascertain whether his scheme of symbols did not admit of a still more
-compact arrangement, and whether eight revolutions were not more than
-enough to accomplish what was required. Here the powers of the practical
-engineer completely broke down. By no effort could he bring before his
-mind such a view of the complicated mechanism as would enable him to
-decide upon any improved arrangement. The inventor, however, without any
-extraordinary mental exertion, and merely by sliding a bit of ruled
-pasteboard up and down his plan, in search of a vacancy where the
-different motions might be placed, at length contrived to pack all the
-motions, which had previously occupied eight turns of the handle, into
-five turns. The symbolic instrument with which he conducted the
-investigation, now informed him of the impossibility of reducing the
-action of the machine to a more condensed form. This appeared by the
-fulness of every space along the lines of compatible action. It was,
-however, still possible, by going back to the actual machinery, to
-ascertain whether movements, which, under existing arrangements, were
-incompatible, might not be brought into harmony. This he accordingly
-did, and succeeded in diminishing the number of incompatible conditions,
-and thereby rendered it possible to make actions simultaneous which were
-before necessarily successive. The notation was now again called into
-requisition, and a new disposition of the parts was made. At this point
-of the investigation, this extraordinary instrument of mechanical
-analysis put forth one of its most singular exertions of power. It
-presented to the eye of the engineer two currents of mechanical action,
-which, from their nature, could not be simultaneous; and each of which
-occupied a complete revolution of the axis, except about a twentieth;
-the one occupying the last nineteen-twentieths of a complete revolution
-of the axis, and the other occupying the first nineteen-twentieths of a
-complete revolution. One of these streams of action was, the successive
-picking up by the carrying fingers of the successive carrying claws; and
-the other was, the successive shooting of nineteen bolts by the nineteen
-bolting fingers. The notation rendered it obvious, that as the bolting
-action commenced a small space below the commencement of the carrying,
-and ended an equal space below the termination of the carrying, the two
-streams of action could be made to flow after one another in one and the
-same revolution of the axis. He thus succeeded in reducing the period of
-completing the action to four turns of the axis; when the notation again
-informed him that he had again attained a limit of condensed action,
-which could not be exceeded without a further change in the mechanism.
-To the mechanism he again recurred, and soon found that it was possible
-to introduce a change which would cause the action to be completed in
-three revolutions of the axis. An odd number of revolutions, however,
-being attended with certain practical inconveniences, it was considered
-more advantageous to execute the motions in four turns; and here again
-the notation put forth its powers, by informing the inventor, _through
-the eye_, almost independent of his mind, what would be the most elegant,
-symmetrical, and harmonious disposition of the required motions in four
-turns. This application of an almost metaphysical system of abstract
-signs, by which the motion of the hand performs the office of the mind,
-and of profound practical skill in mechanics alternately, to the
-construction of a most complicated engine, forcibly reminds us of a
-parallel in another science, where the chemist with difficulty succeeds
-in dissolving a refractory mineral, by the alternate action of the most
-powerful acids, and the most caustic alkalies, repeated in
-long-continued succession.
-
-This important discovery was explained by Mr Babbage, in a short paper
-read before the Royal Society, and published in the Philosophical
-Transactions in 1826.[15] It is to us more a matter of regret than
-surprise, that the subject did not receive from scientific men in this
-country that attention to which its importance in every practical point
-of view so fully entitled it. To appreciate it would indeed have been
-scarcely possible, from the very brief memoir which its inventor
-presented, unaccompanied by any observations or arguments of a nature to
-force it upon the attention of minds unprepared for it by the nature of
-their studies or occupations. In this country, science has been
-generally separated from practical mechanics by a wide chasm. It will be
-easily admitted, that an assembly of eminent naturalists and physicians,
-with a sprinkling of astronomers, and one or two abstract
-mathematicians, were not precisely the persons best qualified to
-appreciate such an instrument of mechanical investigation as we have
-here described. We shall not therefore be understood as intending the
-slightest disrespect for these distinguished persons, when we express
-our regret, that a discovery of such paramount practical value, in a
-country preeminently conspicuous for the results of its machinery,
-should fall still-born and inconsequential through their hands, and be
-buried unhonoured and undiscriminated in their miscellaneous
-transactions. We trust that a more auspicious period is at hand; that
-the chasm which has separated practical from scientific men will
-speedily close; and that that combination of knowledge will be effected,
-which can only be obtained when we see the men of science more
-frequently extending their observant eye over the wonders of our
-factories, and our great practical manufacturers, with a reciprocal
-ambition, presenting themselves as active and useful members of our
-scientific associations. When this has taken place, an order of
-scientific men will spring up, which will render impossible an oversight
-so little creditable to the country as that which has been committed
-respecting the mechanical notation.[16] This notation has recently
-undergone very considerable extension and improvement. An additional
-section has been introduced into it; designed to express the process of
-circulation in machines, through which fluids, whether liquid or
-gaseous, are moved. Mr Babbage, with the assistance of a friend who
-happened to be conversant with the structure and operation of the
-steam-engine, has illustrated it with singular felicity and success in
-its application to that machine. An eminent French surgeon, on seeing
-the scheme of notation thus applied, immediately suggested the
-advantages which must attend it as an instrument for expressing the
-structure, operation, and circulation of the animal system; and we
-entertain no doubt of its adequacy for that purpose. Not only the
-mechanical connexion of the solid members of the bodies of men and
-animals, but likewise the structure and operation of the softer parts,
-including the muscles, integuments, membranes, &c.; the nature, motion,
-and circulation of the various fluids, their reciprocal effects, the
-changes through which they pass, the deposits which they leave in
-various parts of the system; the functions of respiration, digestion,
-and assimilation,--all would find appropriate symbols and
-representatives in the notation, even as it now stands, without those
-additions of which, however, it is easily susceptible. Indeed, when we
-reflect for what a very different purpose this scheme of symbols was
-contrived, we cannot refrain from expressing our wonder that it should
-seem, in all respects, as if it had been designed expressly for the
-purposes of anatomy and physiology.
-
-[Footnote 15: Phil. Trans. 1820, Part III. p, 250, on a method of
-expressing by signs the action of machinery.]
-
-[Footnote 16: This discovery has been more justly appreciated by
-scientific men abroad. It was, almost immediately after its publication,
-adopted as the topic of lectures, in an institution on the Continent for
-the instruction of Civil Engineers.]
-
-Another of the uses which the slightest attention to the details of this
-notation irresistibly forces upon our notice, is to exhibit, in the form
-of a connected plan or map, the organization of an extensive factory, or
-any great public institution, in which a vast number of individuals are
-employed, and their duties regulated (as they generally are or ought to
-be) by a consistent and well-digested system. The mechanical notation is
-admirably adapted, not only to express such an organized connexion of
-human agents, but even to suggest the improvements of which such
-organization is susceptible--to betray its weak and defective points,
-and to disclose, at a glance, the origin of any fault which may, from
-time to time, be observed in the working of the system. Our limits,
-however, preclude us from pursuing this interesting topic to the extent
-which its importance would justify. We shall be satisfied if the hints
-here thrown out should direct to the subject the attention of those who,
-being most interested in such an enquiry, are likely to prosecute it
-with greatest success.
-
-One of the consequences which has arisen in the prosecution of the
-invention of the calculating machinery, has been the discovery of a
-multitude of mechanical contrivances, which have been elicited by the
-exigencies of the undertaking, and which are as novel in their nature as
-the purposes were novel which they were designed to attain. In some
-cases several different contrivances were devised for the attainment of
-the same end; and that among them which was best suited for the purpose
-was finally selected: the rejected expedients--those overflowings or
-waste of the invention--were not, however, always found useless. Like
-the _waste_ in various manufactures, they were soon converted to purposes
-of utility. These rejected contrivances have found their way, in many
-cases, into the mills of our manufacturers; and we now find them busily
-effecting purposes, far different from any which the inventor dreamed
-of, in the spinning-frames of Manchester.[17]
-
-[Footnote 17: An eminent and wealthy retired manufacturer at Manchester
-assured us, that on the occasion of a visit to London, when he was
-favoured with a view of the calculating machinery, he found in it
-mechanical contrivances, which he subsequently introduced with the
-greatest advantage into his own spinning-machinery.]
-
-Another department of mechanical art, which has been enriched by this
-invention, has been that of _tools_. The great variety of new forms which
-it was necessary to produce, created the necessity of contriving and
-constructing a vast number of novel and most valuable tools, by which,
-with the aid of the lathe, and that alone, the required forms could be
-given to the different parts of the machinery with all the requisite
-accuracy.
-
-The idea of calculation by mechanism is not new. Arithmetical
-instruments, such as the calculating boards of the ancients, on which
-they made their computations by the aid of counters--the _Abacus_, an
-instrument for computing by the aid of balls sliding upon parallel
-rods--the method of calculation invented by Baron Napier, called by him
-_Rhabdology_, and since called _Napier's bones_--the Swan Pan of the
-Chinese--and other similar contrivances, among which more particularly
-may be mentioned the Sliding Rule, of so much use in practical
-calculations to modern engineers, will occur to every reader: these may
-more properly be called _arithmetical instruments_, partaking more or less
-of a mechanical character. But the earliest piece of mechanism to which
-the name of a 'calculating machine' can fairly be given, appears to have
-been a machine invented by the celebrated Pascal. This philosopher and
-mathematician, at a very early age, being engaged with his father, who
-held an official situation in Upper Normandy, the duties of which
-required frequent numerical calculations, contrived a piece of mechanism
-to facilitate the performance of them. This mechanism consisted of a
-series of wheels, carrying cylindrical barrels, on which were engraved
-the ten arithmetical characters, in a manner not very dissimilar to that
-already described. The wheel which expressed each order of units was so
-connected with the wheel which expressed the superior order, that when
-the former passed from 9 to 0, the latter was necessarily advanced one
-figure; and thus the process of carrying was executed by mechanism: when
-one number was to be added to another by this machine, the addition of
-each figure to the other was performed by the hand; when it was required
-to add more than two numbers, the additions were performed in the same
-manner successively; the second was added to the first, the third to
-their sum, and so on.
-
-Subtraction was reduced to addition by the method of arithmetical
-complements; multiplication was performed by a succession of additions;
-and division by a succession of subtractions. In all cases, however, the
-operations were executed from wheel to wheel by the hand.[18]
-
-[Footnote 18: See a description of this machine by Diderot, in the
-_Encyc. Method._; also in the works of Pascal, tom, IV., p. 7; Paris,
-1819.]
-
-This mechanism, which was invented about the year 1650, does not appear
-ever to have been brought into any practical use; and seems to have
-speedily found its appropriate place in a museum of curiosities. It was
-capable of performing only particular arithmetical operations, and these
-subject to all the chances of error in manipulation; attended also with
-little more expedition (if so much), as would be attained by the pen of
-an expert computer.
-
-This attempt of Pascal was followed by various others, with very little
-improvement, and with no additional success. Polenus, a learned and
-ingenious Italian, invented a machine by which multiplication was
-performed, but which does not appear to have afforded any material
-facilities, nor any more security against error than the common process
-of the pen. A similar attempt was made by Sir Samuel Moreland, who is
-described as having transferred to wheel-work the figures of _Napier's
-bones_, and as having made some additions to the machine of Pascal.[19]
-
-[Footnote 19: Equidem Morelandus in Anglia, tubæ stentoriæ author,
-Rhabdologiam ex baculis in cylindrulos transtulit, et additiones
-auxiliares peragit in adjuncta machina additionum Pascaliana.]
-
-Grillet, a French mechanician, made a like attempt with as little
-success. Another contrivance for mechanical calculation was made by
-Saunderson. Mechanical contrivances for performing particular
-arithmetical processes were also made about a century ago by Delepréne
-and Boitissendeau; but they were merely modifications of Pascal's,
-without varying or extending its objects. But one of the most remarkable
-attempts of this kind which has been made since that of Pascal, was a
-machine invented by Leibnitz, of which we are not aware that any
-detailed or intelligible description was ever published. Leibnitz
-described its mode of operation, and its results, in the Berlin
-Miscellany,[20] but he appears to have declined any description of its
-details. In a letter addressed by him to Bernoulli, in answer to a
-request of the latter that he would afford a description of the
-machinery, he says, 'Descriptionem ejus dare accuratam res non facilis
-foret. De effectu ex eo judicaveris quod ad multiplicandum numerum sex
-figurarum, _e.g._ rotam quamdam tantum sexies gyrari necesse est, nulla
-alia opera mentis, nullis additionibus intervenientibus; quo facto,
-integrum absolutumque productum oculis objicietur.'[21] He goes on to
-say that the process of division is performed independently of a
-succession of subtractions, such as that used by Pascal.
-
-[Footnote 20: Tom. I., p. 317.]
-
-[Footnote 21: _Com. Epist._ tom, I., p. 289.]
-
-It appears that this machine was one of an extremely complicated nature,
-which would be attended with considerable expense of construction, and
-only fit to be used in cases where numerous and expensive calculations
-were necessary.[22] Leibnitz observes to his correspondent, who required
-whether it might not be brought into common use, 'Non est facta pro his
-qui olera aut pisculos vendunt, sed pro observatoriis aut cameris
-computorum, aut aliis, qui sumptus facile ferunt et multo calculo
-egent.' Nevertheless, it does not appear that this contrivance, of which
-the inventor states that he caused two models to be made, was ever
-applied to any useful purpose; nor indeed do the mechanical details of
-the invention appear ever to have been published.
-
-[Footnote 22: Sed machinam esse sumptuosam et multarum rotarum instar
-horologii: Huygenius aliquoties admonuit ut absolvi curarem; quod non
-sine magno sumptu tædioque factum est, dum varie mihi cum opificibus
-fuit conflictandum.--_Com. Epist._]
-
-Even had the mechanism of these machines performed all which their
-inventors expected from them, they would have been still altogether
-inapplicable for the purposes to which it is proposed that the
-calculating machinery of Mr Babbage shall be applied. They were all
-constructed with a view to perform particular arithmetical operations,
-and in all of them the accuracy of the result depended more or less upon
-manipulation. The principle of the calculating machinery of Mr Babbage
-is perfectly general in its nature, not depending on any _particular
-arithmetical operation_, and is equally applicable to numerical tables of
-every kind. This distinguishing characteristic was well expressed by Mr
-Colebrooke in his address to the Astronomical Society on this invention.
-'The principle which essentially distinguishes Mr Babbage's invention
-from all these is, that it proposes to calculate a series of numbers
-following any law, by the aid of differences, and that by setting a few
-figures at the outset; a long series of numbers is readily produced by a
-mechanical operation. The method of differences in a very wide sense is
-the mathematical principle of the contrivance. A machine to add a number
-of arbitrary figures together is no economy of time or trouble, since
-each individual figure must be placed in the machine; but it is
-otherwise when those figures follow some law. The insertion of a few at
-first determines the magnitude of the next, and those of the succeeding.
-It is this constant repetition of similar operations which renders the
-computation of tables a fit subject for the application of machinery. Mr
-Babbage's invention puts an engine in the place of the computer; the
-question is set to the instrument, or the instrument is set to the
-question, and by simply giving it motion the solution is wrought, and a
-string of answers is exhibited.' But perhaps the greatest of its
-advantages is, that it prints what it calculates; and this completely
-precludes the possibility of error in those numerical results which pass
-into the hands of the public. 'The usefulness of the instrument,' says
-Mr Colebrooke, 'is thus more than doubled; for it not only saves time
-and trouble in transcribing results into a tabular form, and setting
-types for the printing of the table, but it likewise accomplishes the
-yet more important object of ensuring accuracy, obviating numerous
-sources of error through the careless hands of transcribers and
-compositors.'
-
-
-Some solicitude will doubtless be felt respecting the present state of
-the calculating machinery, and the probable period of its completion. In
-the beginning of the year 1829, Government directed the Royal Society to
-institute such enquiries as would enable them to report upon the state
-to which it had then arrived; and also whether the progress made in its
-construction confirmed them in the opinion which they had formerly
-expressed,--that it would ultimately prove adequate to the important
-object which it was intended to attain. The Royal Society, in accordance
-with these directions, appointed a Committee to make the necessary
-enquiry, and report. This Committee consisted of Mr Davies Gilbert, then
-President, the Secretaries, Sir John Herschel, Mr Francis Baily, Mr
-Brunel, engineer, Mr Donkin, engineer, Mr G. Rennie, engineer, Mr
-Barton, comptroller of the Mint, and Mr Warburton, M.P. The voluminous
-drawings, the various tools, and the portion of the machinery then
-executed, underwent a close and elaborate examination by this Committee,
-who reported upon it to the Society.
-
-They stated in their report, that they declined the consideration of the
-principle on which the practicability of the machinery depends, and of
-the public utility of the object which it proposes to attain; because
-they considered the former fully admitted, and the latter obvious to all
-who consider the immense advantage of accurate numerical tables in all
-matters of calculation, especially in those which relate to astronomy
-and navigation, and the great variety and extent of those which it is
-professedly the object of the machinery to calculate and print with
-perfect accuracy;--that absolute accuracy being one of the prominent
-pretensions of the undertaking, they had directed their attention
-especially to this point, by careful examination of the drawings and of
-the work already executed, and by repeated conferences with Mr Babbage
-on the subject;--that the result of their enquiry was, that such
-precautions appeared to have been taken in every part of the
-contrivance, and so fully aware was the inventor of every circumstance
-which might by possibility produce error, that they had no hesitation in
-stating their belief that these precautions were effectual, and that
-whatever the machine would do, it would do truly.
-
-They further stated, that the progress which Mr Babbage had then made,
-considering the very great difficulties to be overcome in an undertaking
-of so novel a kind, fully equalled any expectations that could
-reasonably have been formed; and that although several years had elapsed
-since the commencement of the undertaking, yet when the necessity of
-constructing plans, sections, elevations, and working drawings of every
-part; of constructing, and in many cases inventing, tools and machinery
-of great expense and complexity, necessary to form with the requisite
-precision parts of the apparatus differing from any which had previously
-been introduced in ordinary mechanical works; of making many trials to
-ascertain the value of each proposed contrivance; of altering,
-improving, and simplifying the drawings;--that, considering all these
-matters, the Committee, instead of feeling surprise at the time which
-the work has occupied, felt more disposed to wonder at the possibility
-of accomplishing so much.
-
-The Committee expressed their confident opinion of the adequacy of the
-machinery to work under all the friction and strain to which it can be
-exposed; of its durability, strength, solidity, and equilibrium; of the
-prevention of, or compensation for, wear by friction; of the accuracy of
-the various adjustments; and of the judgment and discretion displayed by
-the inventor, in his determination to admit into the mechanism nothing
-but the very best and most finished workmanship; as a contrary course
-would have been false economy, and might have led to the loss of the
-whole capital expended on it.
-
-Finally, considering all that had come before them, and relying on the
-talent and skill displayed by Mr Babbage as a mechanist in the progress
-of this arduous undertaking, not less for what remained, than on the
-matured and digested plan and admirable execution of what is completed,
-the Committee did not hesitate to express their opinion, that in the
-then state of the engine, they regarded it as likely to fulfil the
-expectations entertained of it by its inventor.
-
-This report was printed in the commencement of the year 1829. From that
-time until the beginning of the year 1833, the progress of the work has
-been slow and interrupted. Meanwhile many unfounded rumours have
-obtained circulation as to the course adopted by Government in this
-undertaking; and as to the position in which Mr Babbage stands with
-respect to it. We shall here state, upon authority on which the most
-perfect reliance may be placed, what have been the actual circumstances
-of the arrangement which has been made, and of the steps which have been
-already taken.
-
-Being advised that the objects of the projected machinery were of
-paramount national importance to a maritime country, and that, from its
-nature, it could never be undertaken with advantage by any individual as
-a pecuniary speculation. Government determined to engage Mr Babbage to
-construct the calculating engine for the nation. It was then thought
-that the work could be completed in two or three years; and it was
-accordingly undertaken on this understanding about the year 1821, and
-since then has been in progress. The execution of the workmanship was
-confided to an engineer by whom all the subordinate workmen were
-employed, and who supplied for the work the requisite tools and other
-machinery; the latter being his own property, and not that of
-Government. This engineer furnished, at intervals, his accounts, which
-were duly audited by proper persons appointed for that purpose. It was
-thought advisable--with a view, perhaps, to invest Mr Babbage with a
-more strict authority over the subordinate agents--that the payments of
-these accounts of the engineer should pass through his hands. The amount
-was accordingly from time to time issued to him by the Treasury, and
-paid over to the engineer. This circumstance has given rise to reports,
-that he has received considerable sums of money as a remuneration for
-his skill and labour in inventing and constructing this machinery. Such
-reports are altogether destitute of truth. He has received, neither
-directly nor indirectly, any remuneration whatever;--on the contrary,
-owing to various official delays in the issues of money from the
-Treasury for the payment of the engineer, he has frequently been obliged
-to advance these payments himself, that the work might proceed without
-interruption. Had he not been enabled to do this from his private
-resources, it would have been impossible that the machinery could have
-arrived at its present advanced state.
-
-It will be a matter of regret to every friend of science to learn, that,
-notwithstanding such assistance, the progress of the work has been
-suspended, and the workmen dismissed for more than a year and a half;
-nor does there at the present moment appear to be any immediate prospect
-of its being resumed. What the causes may be of a suspension so
-extraordinary, of a project of such great national and universal
-interest,--in which the country has already invested a sum of such
-serious amount as L.15,000,--is a question which will at once suggest
-itself to every mind; and is one to which, notwithstanding frequent
-enquiries, in quarters from which correct information might be expected,
-we have not been able to obtain any satisfactory answer. It is not true,
-we are assured, that the Government object to make the necessary
-payments, or even advances, to carry on the work. It is not true, we
-also are assured, that any practical difficulty has arisen in the
-construction of the mechanism;--on the contrary, the drawings of all
-the parts of it are completed, and may be inspected by any person
-appointed on the part of Government to examine them.[23] Mr Babbage is
-known as a man of unwearied activity, and aspiring ambition. Why, then,
-it may be asked, is it that he, seeing his present reputation and future
-fame depending in so great a degree upon the successful issue of this
-undertaking, has nevertheless allowed it to stand still for so long a
-period, without distinctly pointing out to Government the course which
-they should adopt to remove the causes of delay? Had he done this (which
-we consider to be equally due to the nation and to himself), he would
-have thrown upon Government and its agents the whole responsibility for
-the delay and consequent loss; but we believe he has not done so. On the
-contrary, it is said that he has of late almost withdrawn from all
-interference on the subject, either with the Government or the engineer.
-Does not Mr Babbage perceive the inference which the world will draw
-from this course of conduct? Does he not see that they will impute it to
-a distrust of his own power, or even to a consciousness of his own
-inability to complete what he has begun? We feel assured that such is
-not the case; and we are anxious, equally for the sake of science, and
-for Mr Babbage's own reputation, that the mystery--for such it must be
-regarded--should be cleared up; and that all obstructions to the
-progress of the undertaking should immediately be removed. Does this
-supineness and apparent indifference, so incompatible with the known
-character of Mr Babbage, arise from any feeling of dissatisfaction at
-the existing arrangements between himself and the Government? If such be
-the actual cause of the delay, (and we believe that, in some degree, it
-is so,) we cannot refrain from expressing our surprise that he does not
-adopt the candid and straightforward course of declaring the grounds of
-his discontent, and explaining the arrangement which he desires to be
-adopted. We do not hesitate to say, that every reasonable accommodation
-and assistance ought to be afforded him. But if he will pertinaciously
-abstain from this, to our minds, obvious and proper course, then it is
-surely the duty of Government to appoint proper persons to enquire into
-and report on the present state of the machinery; to ascertain the
-causes of its suspension; and to recommend such measures as may appear
-to be most effectual to ensure its speedy completion. If they do not by
-such means succeed in putting the project in a state of advancement,
-they will at least shift from themselves all responsibility for its
-suspension.
-
-[Footnote 23: Government has erected a fire-proof building, in which it
-is intended that the calculating machinery shall be placed when
-completed. In this building are now deposited the large collection of
-drawings, containing the designs, not only of the part of the machinery
-which has been already constructed, but what is of much greater
-importance, of those parts which have not yet been even modelled. It is
-gratifying to know that Government has shown a proper solicitude for the
-preservation of those precious but perishable documents, the loss or
-destruction of which would, in the event of the death of the inventor,
-render the completion of the machinery impracticable.]
-
-
-
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