10 MAY 1890, Page 22

Babbage's Calculating - Machines. (E. and F. N. Spon.)—Mr. Henry P. Babbage

has here collected some thirty papers of various kinds, bearing on the calculating-machines, and has added an interesting summary of the great mathematician's work. The idea of a cal- culating-machine occurred to him when he was an undergraduate at Cambridge. In 1819 (when he was twenty-eight), his first machine had been devised. Government commenced the construc- tion of the difference engine in 1823. Work was stopped in 1829, and the design was finally abandoned in 1843. On the analytical engine Mr. Babbage remained at work, more or less continuously, during the rest of his life.