64 Meetings of the Scientific Association of Great Britain. 
It would be very advantageous to collect the observations on the 
tides which have, no doubt, been made at Antwerp and Ostend, and 
communicate them to the English philosophers, who have expressed 
a desire to be acquainted with them. . If those among us who really 
desire the advancement of science, would agree to take part in the 
observations which are now making in many places on the same plan, 
I would cheerfully impart all the instructions communicated to me 
on this subject, and those especially by Mr. Whewell, whose duty it 
is to collect all the documents to be brought before the Association. 
The amount of the annual subscription of the members, although 
‘trifling, has produced a considerable sum since the commencement 
of the Association ; and it has been resolved to appropriate it to the 
encouragement of difficult but useful labors, such as observations on 
the tides, reducing the calculations of ancient astronomical observa- 
tions not yet published, &c. ‘They have also offered a premium for 
a collection of constants according to the idea of Mr. Babbage. 
Babbage’s Calculating Machine and Constants.—This philoso- 
pher has for a long time expressed+a wish to see a kind of repertory 
formed, in which all that can be measured should be recorded ; for 
instance, the specific gravity of bodies, the linear dilatation of met- 
als, the size of animals, that of their bones, thejr weight, quantity 
of air required for one inspiration, &c. A grand design, especially 
if they record the age of living beings, as I have endeavored to do 
for the human race. The plan that I have made out for man alone, 
is so extensive that I have no hope, even with the assistance of many 
of my friends, of being able to bring forward more than a mere out- 
line of the great work that I contemplate. I think, however, we 
should not give up any imvestigations, however extensive, from which 
any advantage may be derived. ‘Time is an agent which will accom- 
plish the most laborious undertakings, and if our endeavors are di- 
rected in thé proper channel, posterity will finish what we have not 
been able to complete. 
Mr. Babbage, who does not shrink from the most idan under- 
takings, is the inventor of the celebrated calculating machine, com- 
menced'some years ago, at considerable expense, but which‘he will 
probably never see finished on the immense plan he has conceived. 
The machine, however, in its present state, does its duty readily 
and enables us to understand the plan of the inventor. Owing to 
the intimacy which I have enjoyed for a long time with Mr. Bab- 
bage, I had an opportunity of inspecting “all the details of the ma- 
