Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/168

152 -General a copy, made by English workmen, of the Swedish Difference Engine, that it should be exhibited by the side of mine: and that both the Engines should be kept constantly working with a very slow motion.

By a subsequent communication I was informed that the Swedish Machine could not be exhibited, because it was then in constant use, computing certain Tables relating to the values of lives. I regretted this very much. I had intended to alter the handle of my own Engine in order to make it moveable circularly by the same catgut which I had hoped might have driven both. The Tables which the Swedish Machine was employed in printing were not of any pressing necessity, and their execution could, upon such an occasion, have been postponed for a few months without loss or inconvenience.

Besides, if the Swedish Engine had, as I proposed, been placed at work, its superintendent might have continued his table-making with but little delay, and the public would have been highly gratified by the sight.

He could also have given information to the public by occasional explanations of its principles; thus might Her Majesty's Commissioners have gratified thousands of her subjects who came, with intense curiosity, prepared to be pleased and instructed, and whom they sent away amazed and disappointed.

From the experience I had during the first week of the Exhibition, I am convinced that if a fit place had been provided for the two Calculating Machines, so that the public might have seen them both in constant but slow motion, and if the superintendent had occasionally given a short explanation of the principles on which they acted, they would have been one of the greatest attractions within the building.