"From an examination of this table, it appears that the wages earned by the operatives vary from 44d. per day up to 6s., and consequently the skill which is required for their respective employments will be measured by those sums. Now it is evident that if one person is required to make the whole pound of pins, he must have skill enough to earn about 5s. 3d. a day whilst he is pointing or cutting off the heads, and 68. when he is whitening the pins; which three operations together would occupy little more than the seventeenth part of his time. It is also apparent, that during more than one half of his time he must be earning only 18. 3d. per day in putting on the heads, although his skill, if properly employed, would, in the same time, produce nearly five times as much. "It appears from the analysis we have given of the art of pin-making, that it occupies rather more than seven hours and a half of time for ten different individuals working in succession on the same material to convert it into a pound of pins, and that the expense of their labor, each being paid in the joint ratio of his skill and the time he is employed, amounts to nearly 18. 1d. Now if we were to employ the man who whitens the pins, and who earns 68. a day, even supposing that he could inake the pound of pins in an equally short time, yet we must pay him for his time 46.14 pence, or nearly 3s. 10d. The pins would therefore cost in making three times and three quarters as much as they now do by the application of the division of labor. "The higher the skill required of the workman in any one process of a manufacture, and the smaller the time during which it is employed, so much the greater will be the advantage of separating that process from the rest and devoting one person's attention entirely to it. Had we selected the art of needle-making as our illustration, the economy arising from the division of labor would have been still larger, for the process of tempering the needles requires great skill, attention, and experience, and although from three to four thousand are tempered at once, the workman is paid a very high rate of wages. In another process of the same art, dry-pointing, which is also executed with great rapidity, the wages earned by the workman reach from 78. to 12s., 15s., and even in some instances, to 20s. a day, whilst other processes in the same art are carried on by children paid at the rate of 6d. per day." After asserting the similar advantages which mental labor also may derive from a like division, and exemplifying them in the instances adopted for the construction of the French mathematical tables, Mr. Babbage proceeds to a very clear incidental explanation of an invention which at first every where excited the most unbounded astonishment and admiration; and which indeed is still received by persons unaccustomed to the speculations upon which it depends, either with skepticism, or with downright incredulity. We mean his own semi-intellectual Calculating Machine; the Frankenstein, as it were, of Mechanics.* personal examination of a variety of manufactories and workshops devoted to different purposes; but he has since found that it has been distinctly stated in the work of Gioja, Nuovo Prospetto delle Scienze Economiche, 6 tom. 4to. Milano, 1815, tom. 1. cap. iv." [* Of the operations of this extraordinary machine, the following account is given by Dr. Brewster in his "Natural Magic," a work of which a notice appears in the preceding pages. "Of all the machines which have been constructed in modern times, the cal In considering the "Size of Factories," Mr. Babbage enunciates the following principle, that "When (from the peculiar nature of "the produce of each manufacture) the number of processes into culating-machine is doubtless the most extraordinary. Pieces of mechanism for performing particular arithmetical operations have been long ago constructed, but these bear no comparison either in ingenuity or in magnitude to the grand design conceived and nearly executed by Mr. Babbage. Great as the power of mechanism is known to be, yet we venture to say that many of the most intelligent of our readers will scarcely admit it to be possible that astronomical and navigation tables can be accurately computed by machinery; that the machine can itself correct the errors which it may commit; and that the results of its calculations, when absolutely free from error, can be printed off, without the aid of human hands, or the operation of human intelligence. All this, however, Mr. Babbage's machine can do; and as I have had the advantage of seeing it actually calculate, and of studying its construction with Mr. Babbage himself, I am able to make the above statement on personal observation. The calculating-machine, now constructing under the superintendence of the inventor, has been executed at the expense of the British Government, and is of course their property. It consists essentially of two parts, a calculating part, and a printing part, both of which are necessary to the fulfilment of Mr. Babbage's views, for the whole advantage would be lost, if the computations made by the machine were copied by human hands, and transferred to types by the common process. The greater part of the calculating-machinery is already constructed, and exhibits workmanship of such extraordinary skill and beauty, that nothing approaching to it has been witnessed. In order to execute it, particularly those parts of the apparatus which are dissimilar to any used in ordinary mechanical constructions, tools and machinery of great expense and complexity have been invented and constructed; and in many instances contrivances of singular ingenuity have been resorted to, which cannot fail to prove extensively useful in various branches of the mechanical arts. "The drawings of this machinery, which form a large part of the work, and on which all the contrivance has been bestowed, and all the alterations made, cover upwards of 400 square feet of surface, and are executed with extraordinary care and precision. "In so complex a piece of mechanism, in which interrupted motions are propagated simultaneously along a great variety of trains of mechanism, it might have been supposed that obstructions would arise, or even incompatibilities occur, from the impracticability of foreseeing all the possible combinations of the parts; but this doubt has been entirely removed, by the constant employment of a system of mechanical notation invented by Mr. Babbage, which places distinctly in view, at every instant, the progress of motion through all the parts of this or any other machine, and by writing down in tables the times required for all the movements, this method renders it easy to avoid all risk of two opposite actions arriving at the same instant at any part of the engine. "In the printing part of the machine less progress has been made in the actual execution than in the calculating part. The cause of this is the greater difficulty of its contrivance, not for transferring the computations from the calculating part to the copper or other plate destined to receive it, but for giving to the plate itself that number and variety of movements, which the forms adopted in printed tables may call for in practice. "The practical object of the calculating engine is to compute and print a great variety and extent of astronomical and navigation tables, which could not be done without enormous intellectual and manual labor, and which, even if executed by such labor, could not be calculated with the requisite accuracy. Mathematicians, astronomers, and navigators, do not require to be informed of the real value of such tables; but it may be proper to state, for the information of others, that seventeen large folio volumes of logarithmic tables alone were calcu lated at an enormous expense by the French Government; and that the British Government regarded these tables to be of such national value, that they pro "which it is most advantageous to divide it is ascertained, as well "as the number of individuals to be employed, then all other "manufactures which do not employ a direct multiple of that "number, will produce the article at a greater cost." The influence of the employment of large capitals in manufactures next passes under review; and it is shown plainly that manufactured goods become cheaper to the consumer in proportion to the capital employed, because the expense of verifying the quality of the article purchased decreases in similar proportion. In some instances, verification is most costly. In flour, for example, contrary to a received principle, Government has found it cheaper to manufacture than to buy; because of the facilities of adulteration. In the calico trade, also, while calico was woven in the cottages of the operatives, a class of middle-men purchased, in the first instance, whose employment was to ascertain that each piece was perfect and of full measure. Fraud might be practised at far less general risk of exposure by the single cottager, than it can be by the great and opulent manufacturer; and the loss of the latter by general impeachment of reputation, if discovered in one act of dishonesty, must be almost infinitely disproportioned to his gain, if he escapes undetected. Character, therefore, in this case, supplies verification, and consequently saves its expense. Of the truth of this reasoning the following is an instance not a little gratifying to just and honorable national pride. "The powerful influence of established character in producing confidence operated in a very marked manner at the time of the exclusion of British manufacture from the continent during the last war. One of our largest establishments had been in the habit of doing extensive business with a house in the centre of Germany, but on the closing of the continental ports against our manufactures, heavy penalties were inflicted on all those who contravened the Berlin and Milan decrees. The English manufacturer continued to receive orders, with directions how to consign them, and appointments for the time and mode of payment, in letters, the handwriting of which was known to him, but which were never signed, except by the Christian name of one of the firm, and even in some instances they were without any signature at all. These orders were executed, and in no instance was there the least irregularity in the payments." posed to the French Board of Longitnde to print an abridgment of them at the joint expense of the two nations, and offered to advance £5,000 for that purpose. Besides logarithmic tables, Mr. Babbage's machine will calculate tables of the powers and products of numbers, and all astronomical tables for determining the positions of the sun, moon, and planets; and the same mechanical principles have enabled him to integrate innumerable equations of finite differences, that is, when the equation of differences is given, he can, by setting an engine, produce at the end of a given time any distant term which may be required, or any succession of terms commencing at a distant point. "Beside the cheapness and celerity with which this machine will perform its work, the absolute accuracy of the printed results deserves especial notice. By peculiar contrivances, any small error produced by accidental dust, or by any slight inaccuracy in one of the wheels, is corrected as soon as it is transmitted to the next, and this is done in such a manner as effectually to prevent any accumulation of small errors from producing an erroneous figure in the result."] Amid all his correct reasoning and sobriety of views, we rejoice to find in Mr. Babbage manifest traces of that delightful enthusiasm in his favorite pursuit, which ever and anon is sure to display itself in those who belong to the highest class of intellects. In his aspirations after the possible, he soars occasionally almost as high as Bishop Wilkins. The section on Combinations amongst Masters or Workmen is eminently useful and practical; and both parties may derive advantage from the lesson which is there read to them, that such evil alliances are seldom less injurious to themselves, than they are to the public. Sometimes, however, the public has derived benefit at the cost of the combiners. Certain useful inventions in gun-making, by which prices have been reduced, have arisen out of the occasional necessity of manufacturers in consequence of a strike. The general disadvantage may be estimated from a single fact. The proprietors of one establishment in the iron-trade find it expedient always to keep on hand a supply of coal sufficient for six months' consumption, in order to guard against the hazard of a combination, among the pitmen. The dead capital invested in this particular instance is £10,000, and the interest of that sum must accordingly be added to the price of the manufacture. The workmen, in this case also, are injured no less than the public; for their loss is always proportioned to the increased limit of demand. The sections on 66 The effect of Taxes and of Legal Restrictions "upon Manufactures," and on "The Exportation of Machinery," are replete with sound and original thinking; and seem well adapted to correct the narrow, petty, and illiberal maxims which seek to convert that knowledge, which is ever more beneficial to the individual as it becomes more universal, which contributes to the happiness of separate nations in proportion as it gladdens the whole world, into a jealous, pitiful, and exclusive monopoly. In his concluding paragraphs, Mr. Babbage evinces that eloquence is as much at his command as logic; that he is no less master of rich and glowing language, than he has shown himself to be of convincing argument. It is thus that he ends his work. "In whatever light we examine the triumphs and achievements of our species over the creation submitted to its power, we explore new sources of wonder. But if science has called into real existence the visions of the poet, if the accumulating knowledge of ages has blunted the sharpest and distanced the loftiest of the shafts of the satirist, the philosopher has conferred on the moralist an obligation of surpassing weight. In unveiling to him the living miracles which teem in rich exuberance around the minutest atom, as well as throughout the largest masses of ever-active matter, he has placed before him resistless evidence of immeasurable design. Surrounded by every form of animate and inanimate existence, the sun of sicence has yet penetrated but through the outer fold of Nature's majestic robe; but if the philosopher were required to separate, from amongst those countless evidences of creative power, one being, the masterpiece of its skill; and from that being to select one gift, the choicest of all the attributes of life;-turning within his own breast and conscious of those powers which have subjugated to his race the external world, and of those higher powers by which he has subjugated to himself that creative faculty which aids his faltering conceptions of a Deity, the humble worshipper at the altar of truth would pronounce that being, man; that endowment, -human reason. - "But however large the interval that separates the lowest from the highest of those sentient beings which inhabit our planet, all the results of observation, enlightened by all the reasonings of the philosopher, combine to render it probable that, in the vast extent of creation, the proudest attribute of our race is but, perchance, the lowest step in the gradation of intellectual existence. For, since every portion of our own material globe, and every animated being it supports, afford, on more scrutinizing inquiry, more perfect evidence of design, it would indeed be most unphilosophical to believe that those sister spheres, glowing with light and heat radiant from the same central source, and that the members of those kindred systems, almost lost in the remoteness of space, and perceptible only from the countless multitude of their congregated globes, should each be no - more than a floating chaos of unformed matter; or, being all the work of the same Almighty Architect, that no living eye should be gladdened by their forms of beauty, that no intellectual being should expand its faculties in deciphering their laws." [From "The Metropolitan, No. 17."] ART. X.- Polonia; or Monthly Reports on Polish Affairs. Published by the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland. No. I. August 1832. pp. 54. Fox, Hatchard, & Ridgway. We have been much amused by a florid description of the courtesies of the Russian Czar to the officers of the Talavera, which conveyed Lord Durham lately to the North. The tiger there seems to emulate the lamb; the specious hypocrite puts on the mask of sincerity, as if he would say with his Tory friends in England, "Am I what they accuse me of being, - am I not the most "urbane, and merciful, and just, and gentlemanly of beings?" We could not help being struck, however, with the admission of the good, easy, purblind correspondent of the Morning Herald (in which we saw the statement), that the Czar moved alone, - that no crowds of boats and yachts with gay streamers, no shoals of vessels and myriads of people voluntarily attended him in his aquatic visit, such as attend our own king. His vessel was alone; the image of his desolations. No cheerful subjects surrounded him with gratulations; he went and returned as if no human sympathy of the fifty millions under his iron rod attended his footsteps. "Tyrants never sleep," said Voltaire; he might have added, "because they must cease to simulate." This little work comes just à propos to remove the false impression which might be caused by the correspondence above alluded to. We had heard that a Polish VOL. I. - NO. I. 10+ |