Intelligence  and  Miscellaneous  Articles.  397 
The  inventions  of  Mr.  Babbage  may  be  regarded  rather  as  stu- 
pendous exercises  of  ingenuity  than  of  ordinary  practical  utility. 
The  Swiss  machine  of  Schultz,  which  is  regarded  as  a  completed 
idea  of  Mr.  Babbage's  original  plan,  has  the  disadvantages  of  great 
costliness  and  requiring  skilled  mechanical  manipulation. 
The  arithmometer  of  M.  Thomas  de  Colmar,  with  the  exception 
of  being  extensively  used  by  actuaries,  is  comparatively  unknown, 
although  its  first  appearance  dates  nearly  forty  years  back. 
The  machine  of  M.  Maurel,  another  French  invention,  appears  to 
have  existed  only  to  share  the  fate  of  these  machines  generally. 
The  invention  of  Staffel  was  tolerably  near  perfection  in  the  rapidity 
with  which  it  was  capable  of  performing  arithmetical  operations. 
Roth's  automaton  calculator  was  introduced  about  the  year  1845; 
and  no  doubt,  being  a  slight  modification  of  the  machines  already 
noticed,  it  was  capable  of  performing  the  same  operations.  M.  Slo- 
vinski  in  1849  introduced  to  the  notice  of  the  British  Association  a 
calculating-machine  which  was  said  to  be  perfect  and  reliable  in  its 
action. 
Sang's  platometer  was,  I  believe,  devised  entirely  for  actuarial 
purposes,  but  has  fallen  into  disuse  from  the  uncertainty  of  its 
rolling  and  sliding  motion. 
With  the  exception  of  the  arithmometer  of  Thomas  de  Colmar,  I 
am  not  aware  of  any  important  application  being  made  of  these 
machines.  It  combines  all  that  can  be  desired  by  the  general  com- 
puter ;  and  the  object  of  the  author  is  to  point  out  the  fact  that  very 
material  assistance  may  be  expected  from  it  in  almost  any  calcula- 
tion in  applied  mathematics.  In  a  paper  which  was  read  before  the 
Society  of  Telegraph  Engineers,  it  was  shown  by  the  author  that 
electrical  Tables  involving  complicated  calculations  were  capable  of 
being  worked  out  by  it  with  astonishing  rapidity. 
As  a  matter  of  course,  calculating-machines  designed  to  combine 
the  desiderata  of  portability  and  cheapness  must  be  contracted  in 
their  range  of  performance  ;  and  consequently  it  devolves  upon  the 
ingenuity  of  the  computer  to  bring  his  formula  within  the  range  of 
the  machine. 
A  machine  which  can  be  depended  upon  for  performing  accurately 
the  addition  or  subtraction  of  constant  or  variable  quantities  can  be 
made  to  include  the  solution  of  problems  where  several  intermediate 
results  are  required.  Where  only  one  result  is  required,  machine 
assistance  cannot  be  thought  of ;  but  when  it  is  desired  to  tabulate 
a  series  of  results,  the  time  spent  on  arriving  at  a  general  solution 
so  as  to  be  presentable  to  the  machine  is  compensated  for  in  the 
relief  of  mental  strain  and  the  certainty  of  its  accuracy. 
The  machine  appears  to  be  capable  of  giving  assistance  in  the 
calculations  which  are  involved  in  almost  any  branch  of  physical  or 
applied  science,  such  as  the  compilation  of  Tables  of  the  expansion 
of  liquids  and  gases  by  heat,  the  rarefaction  and  condensation  of 
gases,  specific  heat  and  latent  heat  of  bodies  referred  to  volume 
under  variable  pressures,  diffusion-tables,  volumetric  calculations, 
meteorological  reductions,  and  so  on. 
