One of Mr. Spottiswoode's moat curious facts was this
:- "Professor James Thomson has recently constructed a machine which, by means of the mere friction of a disk, a cylinder, and a ball, is capable of effecting a variety of the complicated calcu- lations which occur in the highest application of mathe- matics to physical problems." By the process of "turning a handle," you may, with the help of this instrument, solve differential equations of at least the second order, and solve the problem of" finding the free motions of any number of material attracting particles, unrestricted by any of the approximate sup- positions required in the treatment of the lunar and planetary theories." We shall soon have some of the physiologists hunting for "the disk, the cylinder, and the ball" in the human brain, and finding them, perhaps,—in less complete co-ordination,--in some great mathematician's cerebrum.
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