18G 



CHARLES BABBAGE. 



in differeut languages doubles itself in 10,000 words. The following 

 table gives the result which he obtained : 



Nwniber of times different letters are doubled in ten thousand words. 



Letters. 



English. 



French. 



Italian. 



German. 



Latin. 



A 









1.5 





B 







10. a 



23.7 

 1.] 





C 



D 



9.4 



1.9 



18.9 



14.6 



1.5 



7.2 





8.2 

 4.4 



E 



7.2 

 8.1 



19.4 



8.2 



F 



12.0 

 20.4 



9.4 

 1.4 



a 



H 







I 









0.4 

 0.8 

 38.7 

 21.2 

 19.7 

 0.4 

 0.4 



8.9 











K 











L 



io. i 



G.4 

 8.3 

 12.7 

 12.4 



55.5 

 25.7 

 17.7 



70.6 

 12.0 



20.4 



36.5 

 5.9 

 4.4 



M 



N 







P 



5.7 



12.0 



4.4 



11.2 



41.7 



5.9 



5.2 



Q 





K 



12.7 

 13. 9 

 13.1 



32.2 

 44.2 

 12.0 



10 8 

 53.7 

 64.5 



7.8 



53.5 



9.3 



1.9 



s 



T 



U 



V 



.-, 





2.2 





w 











X 













T 













Z 







7.6 







Total 











141.8 



215. 5 



2.30. 8 



] IGG. 5 



147.7 





[In regard to the question of what use is this, we would remark that 

 this question is never asked by the student of nature ; since every item of 

 knowledge is. connected in some way with all other knowledge. Noth- 

 ing can be said to be useless which tends to exhibit new relations, and 

 indeed it is impossible to say a priori that a given fact may not find an 

 application even in practice, however remote it may seem from anything 

 of this kind. The results given in the foregoing investigation may be 

 of importance in determining the casting of doable types. The number 

 of occurrences of a given letter in 10,000 words of any language deter- 

 mines the number of types of that letter in a font. — J. H.] 



Our physicist always took care, in traveling, to carry with him those 

 instruments which would enable him to carry on some investigations. 

 He was essentially a man of experiment. He held that the eye and the 

 ear were great aids to the judgment, and a demonstration never seemed 

 to him complete until he knew how to render it evident to the sense and 

 the reason. Toward the end of his life his vivacity was considerably 

 moderated, and the mortification which he feU on account of not being- 

 able to complete his calculating-machine, and the loss of friends, cast a 

 shadow over his latter days. 



[I had myself the pleasure to make the acquaintance of Mr. Babbage 

 in 1837, while he was in the zenith of his mental power, and to witness 

 the operation of his first calculating-machine. I again visited him in 

 1870, after an interval of jus-t one-third of a century. I found him in the 



