The great inducement to Mr. Babbage, some years since, to attempt
the construction of a machine by which astronomical tables could be
calculated and even printed by mechanical means, and with entire
accuracy, was the errors in the requisite tables. Nineteen such
errors, in point of fact, were discovered in an edition of Taylor’s
_Logarithms_ printed in 1796; some of which might have led to the
most dangerous results in calculating a ship’s place. These nineteen
errors (of which one only was an error of the press) were pointed out
in the _Nautical Almanac_ for 1832. In one of these _errata_, the seat
of the error was stated to be in cosine of 14° 18′ 3″. Subsequent
examination showed that there was an error of one second in this
correction, and accordingly, in the _Nautical Almanac_ of the next
year a new correction was necessary. But in making the new correction
of one second, a new error was committed of ten degrees, making it
still necessary, in some future edition of the _Nautical Almanac_,
to insert an _erratum_ in an _erratum_ of the _errata_ in Taylor’s
_Logarithms_.--_Edinburgh Review_, vol. 59.
Phenomena of Heat.