Meetings of the Scientific Association of Great Britain. 65 
chine, and was enabled to form a far more correct idea of a work 
which I have often heard mentioned, but with the details of which 
very few persons are acquainted. It is certainly very complicated, 
and great attention is necessary to follow the action of its different 
parts, so that I will not attempt to give a description, which would 
no doubt fill a large volume, if we paid any regard to the ideas of 
the inventor, the minute perfection of the workmanship, and all the 
mathematical calculations which can be performed by this machine. 
In 1829 a committee of engineers, of whom Messrs. Brunel, Donkin, 
' Bartow, &c. were members, thought this work the most perfect they 
had ever seen. One of its most useful applications would be the 
construction of logarithmic tables, especially with the improvements 
designed by Mr. Babbage. The machine will print logarithms while 
it calculates them, so that the least error in the copy or the printed 
part can be detected. It may, it is true, happen that when in mo- 
tion one tooth of a wheel may break, and a mistake in this way be 
committed, but as this mistake would be carried out in all the sub- 
sequent results. it could not escape observation on proving the final 
result. 
Statistics. —Statistical information has not less engaged Mr. Bab- 
bage’s attention, and as this scicnee is not included in the number of 
those which the committees at Cambridge were appointed to exam- 
ine, we united with Messrs. Malthus and Jones, with whom I have 
the pleasure of being acquainted, to discuss the subject. Some in- 
dividuals showed a desire to be present at these meetings, which 
were at first altogether private; they soon, however, received a share 
of attention from the society, at the general meeting, by appointing 
a committee for statistics, but confining its operations to the numeri- 
cal part of the science. Mr. Malthws was intended for the presi- 
dent of the committee, but upon motion of this illustrious philoso- 
pher, Mr. Babbage was named in his stead, and Mr. Drinkwater per- 
petual secretary, charged with receiving the communications address- 
ed to the committee. ; 
The attention of the committee of statistics was first directed to 
the necessity of having exact accounts of the population, and we 
must grant that this necessity is very urgent in England, especially 
with regard to births. Parliament is now engaged in devising plans 
for giving precision to this statistical element, and is collecting with 
care all the documents which can give any information on this nice 
pomt. Mr. Bowring proposed to me, at London, to submit to an 
Vor. XX VITI.—No. 1. 9 
