REGISTERING OPERATIONS
Charles Babbage · Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2010
(45.) O ne of the most singular advantages we derive from machinery is in the check which it affords against the inattention, the idleness, or the knavery, of human agents. Few occupations are more wearisome than counting a series of repetitions of the same fact; the number of paces we walk affords a tolerably good measure of distance passed over, but the value of this is much enhanced by possessing an instrument, the pedometer, which will count for us the number of steps we have made. A piece of mechanism of this kind is sometimes applied to count the number of turns made by the wheel of a carriage, and thus to indicate the distance travelled: an instrument similar in its object, but differing in its construction, has been used for counting the number of strokes made by a steamengine, and the number of coins struck in a press. One of the simplest instruments for counting any series of operations, was contrived by Mr. Donkin. (46.) Another instrument for registering is used in some establishments for calendering and embossing. Many hundred thousand yards of calicoes and stuffs pass weekly through these operations, and as the price paid for the process is small, the value of the time spent in measuring them would bear a considerable proportion to the profit. A machine has, therefore, been contrived for measuring and registering the length of the goods as they pass rapidly through the hands of the operator, and all chance of erroneous counting is thus avoided. (47.) Perhaps the most useful contrivance of this kind, is one for ascertaining the vigilance of a watchman.