Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/170

154 is own mind relative to the abolition of all tables except those made and stereotyped by machinery, I offered all the assistance in my power to accelerate the accomplishment of his task.

I lent him for exhibition numerous specimens of the unfinished portions of the Difference Engine No. 1. These I had purchased on the determination of the Government to abandon its construction in 1842.

I proposed also to lend him the Mechanical Notations of the Difference Engine, which had been made at my own expense, and were finished by myself and my eldest son, Mr. B. Herschel Babbage.

I had had several applications from foreigners for some account of my system of Mechanical Notation, and great desire was frequently expressed to see the illustrations of the method itself, and of its various applications.

These, however, were so extensive that it was impossible, without very great inconvenience, to exhibit them even in my own house.

I therefore wrote to Mr. Gravatt to offer him the loan of the following property for the Exhibition:—

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