The Arithmometer.

Bush Advocate, Volume XI, Issue 869, 9 December 1893, Page 5

The Arithmometer.

" A mechanical arithmetician 1 Impossible J Mathematics by maohinery ? Never ! Acoount-keoping without an accountant? Absurd.' Sowing and writing and bread • baking and cigarette^ making —

these and the . like we know and aro accustomed to. But oiphoring and aocount-

keeping ! Surely this is out of tbe question. Even in an age of machinery — when man is worsted by the machine at every turn — surely we have not come to that ? So most persons, forgetful of Babbage, would have said a week or so ago. So the uninitiated wonld speak to-day. Yet it is the sober and literal truth that that which seems the impossible has coruo to pass, and that an invention has now been perfeoted, the Arithmometer by name, possessing all the ciphering accomplishments, astonishing as it seems, set forth above. M r Burroughs is the name of the inventor, and it comes from America, of course. In general appearance the machine is no, at all unlike the type- writer, but its internal construction appears to be considerably more complex. Yet it ia declared that it is almost mpossible for it to get out of order. About 12in square, tho upper surface consists, as in the case of the type writer, of a sloping key-board, composed of keys or bnttona corresponding to the various numerals By pressing down these any amount desired, from L 1,000,000 to a penny, can bo printed, by meana of types operating through an ink riband, on tho paper which is fixed at the baok of the machine. Line after line of figures can bo printed in this way, pounds, shillings and pence falling into their propor places according as the respective keys are pressed down, and then at the end, in virtue of some mysterious meohanism which seems nothing less than miraculous to the uninstructed, you pull a lever, and your sum is done. Each column of figures is correctly added up, and the result, giving, of course, the sum total of all the amounts, is printed in its proper place underneath. How the thing is done it is impossible to explain in dotail, but the principle seems to be that in tho case of each column of ficures the machine keeps a record of the number o figures which have been printed or given out, so to speak, and is so ablo to announce at any given time tho total which must be plaoed at tho foot of each column. With one single column of figures this might not seom so very remarkable, but the marvellou.i point about the maohine uudor not : c 3 is that in addition to adding up correctly, it execut»B with unfailing preoision that more or less delicate operation known as carrying forward. Thus, if the total of tho pence column amonufa to, say li.i, it calmly records the odd 3d, anil carries forward the 5», adding them without turning a hair (if one may use so disrespeotful an expression) on the shillings column, and repeating the same thing, of course, with the shillings in their turn, and with each column of tho pounds. No wonder tho maeluno took a lifetime to construct ! The cost of tha maeVu.efl in thi* country will probably be some LiO or L3O each. In the States their cost is about double this. Bnt over there they are always willing to pay more foe a novelty than we are. — " Westminster."