The attention of the Members was especially directed to a small volume presented by Messrs. Scheutz, of Stockholm, through Mr. Gravatt (M. Inst. C.E.), entitled, “Specimens of Tables, calculated, stereo-moulded, and printed by Machinery.” The book, which was with excellent feeling dedicated to Mr. Babbage, in recognition of the generous assistance he had afforded to the ingenious labourers in a similar field to that in which he had so long toiled, was preceded by a short memoir, describing the progress of the construction of the machine, under the most discouraging circumstances—the ultimate success obtained—the introduction of the machine in this country, through Count Sparre, to Messrs. Bryan, Donkin and Co., where Mr. Gravatt became interested in it, and placed it before the Eoyal Society, and the Institution of Civil Engineers—its success at the great Exhibition at Paris in 1855, where it obtained a gold medal—and finally its acquisition, through Professor B. A. Gould, for the Dudley Observatory, at Albany, U.S. America, as a gift to that establishment from Mr. John F. Rathbone, an enlightened and public-spirited merchant of that city.

The construction was briefly described, and it was shown that, at the average rate of working, one hundred and twenty lines per hour of arguments and results were calculated and stereotyped ready for the press. On trial, it was found that the machine would calculate and stereotype, without chance of error, two pages and a half of figures in the same time that a skilful compositor would take merely to set up the types for one single page.