ON BABBAGE'S SYSTEM OF MECHANICAL NOTATION AS 

 APPLIED TO AUTOMATIC MACHINERY, 



BY 



HOWARD GRUBB-, C.E., F.R.A.S. 

 Read December 17th, 1877. 



In the year 1826, the celebrated mathematician, Mr. Charles 

 Babbage, presented a paper to the Royal Society of London, on 

 a method of expressing by signs the action of machinery. 



The ingenious and elegant system Mr. Babbage describes in 

 this paper appears to have been paid but little attention to by 

 engineers, and I can only find one mechanical author, and that 

 of old date, treating of Mr. Babbage's system. 



The fact of this (as it seems to me), most useful system of 

 notation, having been apparently buried in oblivion, has induced 

 me to bring the matter under the notice of this Society in the 

 hope that it may prove as useful to many others as it has been 

 to me. I may also say that I am further induced to notice this 

 matter, from the fact that my father, who made considerable use 

 of this system in planning his automatic printing, and other 

 machinery, found the system capable of extension in directions, 

 certainly not recorded, and perhaps never contemplated, by Mr. 

 Babbage. 



I shall first endeavour to explain the object which Mr. Babbage 

 had in planning this notation, then the principle of the system, 

 and lastly the uses to which it may be applied. 



Firstly. The object Mr. Babbage aimed at was to supply a 

 serious want which he felt existed in graphically representing an 

 elaborate piece of machinery. He desired to devise such a 

 method of graphical representation as would present to the 

 mind of the mechanic a true representation, not so much 

 of the general form and disposition of the small parts, for that 

 can be done by ordinary draughtsmanship, but of the quantity 

 and nature of the different movements, the time each movement 

 occupies, and the sequence of such movements, &c. Such a re- 

 presentation could no doubt be made by a series of drawings of 



