Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/64

48 of differences as applied to the calculation of Tables, and should have been so fascinated with it as to have undertaken to construct a machine of the kind.

Mr. Deacon, of Beaufort House, Strand, whose mechanical skill is well known, made, for his own satisfaction, a small model of the calculating part of such a machine, which was shown only to a few friends, and of the existence of which I was not aware until after the Swedish machine was brought to London.

Mr. Scheutz, an eminent printer at Stockholm, had far greater difficulties to encounter. The construction of mechanism, as well as the mathematical part of the question, was entirely new to him. He, however, undertook to make a machine having four differences, and fourteen places of figures, and capable of printing its own Tables.

After many years' indefatigable labour, and an almost ruinous expense, aided by grants from his Government, by the constant assistance of his son, and by the support of many enlightened members of the Swedish Academy, he completed his Difference Engine. It was brought to London, and some time afterwards exhibited at the great Exhibition at Paris. It was then purchased for the Dudley Observatory at Albany by an enlightened and public-spirited merchant of that city, John F. Rathbone, Esq.

An exact copy of this machine was made by Messrs. Donkin and Co., for the English Government, and is now in use in the Registrar-General's Department at Somerset House. It is very much to be regretted that this specimen of English workmanship was not exhibited in the International Exhibition.