315 



SCHEUTZ, GEORGE AND EDWARD. 



SCHIAVONETTI, LLTIGI. 



316 



of the society to examine the machine. They produced a most 

 interesting aud satisfactory report, from the pen of Professor Stokes, 

 describing at some length the powers of the machine, and concluding 

 in these terms : " It is mainly, as it seems to us, in the computatiou 

 of mathematical tables [as distinguished from the tabulation of 

 functions for other purposes] that the machine of M. Soheutz would 

 come into use. The most important of such tables have long since 

 been calculated ; but various others could be suggested which it 

 might be worth while to construct, could it be done with such ease 

 and cheapness as would be afforded by the use of the machine. It 

 has been suggested to us, and we think with good reason, that the 

 machine would be vt ry useful even for the mere reprinting of old 

 tables, because it could calculate and print more quickly than a good 

 compositor could set the types, and that without risk of error." This 

 report was read before the Royal Society on the 21st of June 1855, 

 and will be found in the 'Proceedings,' vol. vii., p. 499-509. 



At the twenty-fifth meeting of the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, held at Glasgow in September 1855, Mr. Henry 

 Prevost Babbage, one of the sons of the first inventor of the Difference 

 Engine, and an officer of the Indian army, made an oral communication 

 to the Section of Mechanical Science, ' On Mechanical Notation, as 

 exemplified in the Swedish Calculating Machine of Messrs. Scheutz,' 

 referring to graphic tables exhibiting, in that notation, its construc- 

 tion and mode of working. An abstract of it is given in the report of 

 the meeting, ' Transactions of the Sections," p. 203-5. The system 

 of describing machinery, termed 'Mechanical Notation,' had been 

 devised by Mr. Babbage, senior, and made public in the ' Philoso- 

 phical Transactions ' for 1826. By its means a complete description 

 was given of the Swedish engine on two pieces of paper, on which was 

 rendered visible to the eye, in one unbroken chain, the whole sequence 

 of its minutest movements. The machine having been removed to the 

 Paris Universal Exhibition of 1855, the appropriate jury, led by 

 M. Mathieu, member of the Academy of Sciences of Paris and of the 

 French Board of Longitude, an astronomer and mathematician well 

 acquainted with all the calculating machines before produced or pro- 

 posed, unanimously awarded it the gold medal. To assist in making 

 known the construction and the theory of the machine, Mr. Babbage 

 had presented a note relative to it to the Academy of Sciences of 

 Paris, referring to his sou's graphic tables already noticed, which were 

 exhibited to the members on the 8th of October. This note appears 

 in the 'Comptes Rendus ' under that date, vol. xli., p. 557. The gold 

 medal was publicly presented to Messrs. Scheutz by his royal highness 

 Prince Charles of Sweden in the royal palace of Stockholm, on the 

 21st of April 1856. Mr. George Scheutz had been elected, some time 

 previously, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of the Third 

 Class, for the Science of Mechanics, and on the 28th of April he was 

 made Chevalier of the order of Wasa. Mr. E. Scheutz afterwards 

 exhibited the machine at work in the Imperial Observatory of Paris, 

 and then brought it to London again, where, by the advice of Mr. 

 Gravatt, and after consultation with Mr. Babbage, it was caused to 

 compute and print a collection of specimens of numerical tables, which 

 has subsequently been published in a pamphlet noticed in the sequel 

 of this article. 



Through the exertions of Professor B. A. Gould, of the Dudley Obser- 

 vatory, at Albany, in the United States of North America, Messrs. 

 Scheutz's engine has since become the property of that Observatory, as a 

 gift from a public-spirited merchant of Albany, Mr. John F. Rathbone. 

 An account of the construction and mode of working of this engine will 

 be given in the article CALCULATING MACHINES, in ARTS AND Sc. Div. 

 A detailed description of the machinery, both for calculating and for 

 furnishing stereotype plate of the results, will be found in the specifi- 

 cation, dated October 17, 1854, of the patent which the inventors have 

 taken out. 



It is now requisite to state that two things only are common to the 

 Difference Engines of Messrs. Scheutz and Mr. Babbage, the principle 

 of calculation by differences, and the contrivance by which the com- 

 puted results are conveyed to the printing apparatus. The former, 

 Mr. Babbage has himself remarked, " is so obviously the only principle, 

 at once extensive in its grasp, and simple in its mechanical application," 

 that he has "little doubt it will be found to have been suggested 

 by more than one antecedent writer ; " while the latter is well known 

 in the striking part of the common eight-day clock, which is called 

 the ' pdfeil.' " But, everything else in the machine of Messrs. Scheutz is 

 perfectly original. It consists of two parts, the calculating and the 

 printing ; the former being again divided into two, the adding and 

 the carrying parts. With respect to the adding, its structure is 

 entirely different from Mr. Babbage's. The very ingenious mechanism 

 for carrying the tens is also quite different from his. The printing 

 part is altogether unlike that represented in the drawings of the latter ; 

 which, indeed, were entirely unknown to the Swedish inventors. 



A gratifying incident iu the history of science and its votaries may 

 appropriately conclude our account of Messrs. Scheutz's achievement. 

 At the Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Society, on the 30th of 

 November 1855, Mr. Babbage addressed the President, Lord Wrot- 

 tesley, and the fellows present, of whom the writer of this article was 

 one, on the subject of the distribution of the medals for the year, 

 expressing his regret that a medal had not been awarded for the 

 Swedish Calculating Machine. As some misapprehension, he said, 



existed in the public mind respecting the originality displayed in that 

 invention, he would proceed to explain some of its principles, and thus 

 "render justice to its author." After introducing the discrimination 

 between the two Difference Engines, which has been adopted above, 

 and declaring that while Mr. (George) Scheutz had always avowed, " in 

 the most open and honourable manner, the origin of his idea/' but 

 that his finished work contained undoubted proofs of great originality, 

 and showed that little beyond the principle could have been borrowed 

 from his (Mr. Babbage's) previous work ; he proceeded to relate, in the 

 most sympathising terms, the progress, difficulties and final success of 

 Messrs. Scheutz, concluding with a generous eulogy, and with the 

 expression of a hope that the council of the ensuing year would repair 

 what he considered to have been an omission on the part of the pre- 

 vious council. At a meeting of the Institution of Civil Engineers, on 

 the 20th of May 1856, Robert Stephenson, Esq., M.P., F.R.S., Presi- 

 dent, in the chair, Mr. H. P. Babbage again exhibited and explained 

 his diagrams ; and his father took the opportunity of repeating his 

 testimony to the originality and merits ot the inventors, but with a 

 more detailed discrimination between their Difference Engine and his 

 own. An account of both communications has been given in the 

 ' Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers/ vol. xv., 

 pp. 497-514. It is not unfrequent to hear public testimony given by 

 one man of science in favour of the merits of another in a different 

 department, or in a different path even of his own. But here was the 

 undoubted first inventor of the Difference Engine bearing explicit tes- 

 timony to the originality of the second, who might be regarded as his 

 rival, and that before the 'President and Council of the Royal Society 

 of London,' by whose predecessors iu office his own invention or dis- 

 covery had been recommended to the support of the British govern- 

 ment, a third part of a century before. Mr. Babbage subsequently 

 printed his ' Observations,' from which, indeed, as already indicated, 

 some parts of this notice have been derived. The source of others 

 will be found in the preface to the following, a publication also before 

 alluded to, and of which, as being the first of its kind, we give a 

 bibliographical description. ' Specimens of Tables, Calculated, Stereo- 

 moulded, and printed by Machinery.' London (Longman & Co.), 1857. 

 ' Printed (without the use of types) by C. Whiting, Beaufort House, 

 Strand.' In Royal Octavo. Dedicated by Messrs. Scheutz to Mr. 

 Babbage. Preface, giving the history of the Machine, p. i to xviii. 

 Abstract furnished by Mr. William Gravatt, C.E., F.R.S., " of his own 

 manner of considering and working this Machine," p. 1 to 10. [Table] 

 ' No. 1. Logarithms of numbers from 1 to 10,000, calculated, stereo- 

 moulded, and printed by machinery,' pp. 11 to 42. 'Specimens of 

 various Tables,' fourteen in number, of which some are purely nume- 

 rical, others trigonometrical ; one gives the ranges of shot with various 

 charges of powder ; another the logarithmic value of male life in Lon- 

 don ; and the last four are astronomical : p. 43 to 50. An impression of 

 the engraving on wood representing the machine, which originally 

 appeared in the 'Illustrated London News ' (for June 30, 1855, p. 661), 

 is prefixed as a frontispiece. 



SCHIAVO'NE, ANDREA, caljed MEDTJLA, was born at Sebenico in 

 Dalmatia, in 1522. He was of obscure parentage, and was placed with 

 a house-painter at Venice, where he employed his leisure time in 

 studying from prints after Parmigiano, and in contemplating the works 

 of Giorgione and Titian. The latter artist, having become acquainted 

 with the poverty of Schiavone, and approving of his ability, employed 

 him with Tintoretto and others in the grand works for the library of 

 S. Marco, where three entire ceilings are said to be by his hand. He 

 soon became the rival of Tintoretto, but although he was excellent as 

 a colourist, his defective knowledge of drawing rendered him unable 

 to compete successfully with that master; the work however which he 

 painted for the church of Santa Croce, respresenting the Visitation of 

 the Virgin to Elizabeth, gained him considerable reputation. Two of 

 his most admired works are in the church of the Padri Teatini at 

 Rimini, one of them the Nativity of our Lord, the other the Assump- 

 tion of the Virgin. Schiavone died at Venice in 1582. His chief 

 merit consists in his colouring, to which he seems to have sacrificed 

 other requisites of his art. Still his attitudes and draperies are 

 graceful, and his countenances, more especially of women, expressive ; 

 nor are his compositions deficient in variety and skill. There are 

 several etchings by him, some from his own designs, and others after 

 Raffaelle, Parmigiano, and other artists. 



SCHIAVONETTI, LUIGI, or LOUIS, was bora at Bassano, in the 

 Venetian states, April 1, 1765. He was the eldest son of a stationer, 

 with a large family and limited means. Luigi very early displayed a 

 talent for drawing, and at the age of thirteen was placed under Giulio 

 Golini, or Goldini, a painter of some eminence, who became much 

 attached to his pupil. On his death about three years after, the 

 young Schiavonetti turned his attentiou to engraving, and received 

 some instruction in the mechanical part of the art from a very indif- 

 ferent engraver named Lorio. He was employed for a time in engrav- 

 ing for Count Remaudini, and appears to have aimed at the style of 

 Bartolozzi, whose engravings in the chalk manner were then attracting 

 much attention. His skill in imitating this master led to a connection 

 with an engraver named Testolini, who eventually induced him to 

 remove from Bassano to London, where he resided for some time with 

 Bartolozzi, and afterwards established himself. He profited much by 

 his connection, with Bartolozzi, and continued the exercise of his talents 



