Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/88

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(65.) great advantage which we may derive from machinery is from the check which it affords against the inattention, the idleness, or the dishonesty of human agents. Few occupations are more wearisome than counting a series of repetitions of the same fact; the number of paces we walk affords a tolerably good measure of distance passed over, but the value of this is much enhanced by possessing an instrument, the pedometer, which will count for us the number of steps we have made. A piece of mechanism of this kind is sometimes applied to count the number of turns made by the wheel of a carriage, and thus to indicate the distance travelled: an instrument, similar in its object, but differing in its construction, has been used for counting the number of strokes made by a steam-engine, and the number of coins struck in a press. One of the simplest instruments for counting any series of operations, was contrived by Mr. Donkin.

(66.) Another instrument for registering is used in some establishments for calendering and embossing. Many hundred thousand yards of calicoes and stuffs undergo these operations weekly; and as the price paid for the process is small, the value of the