REGISTERING OPERATIONS.

39

CHAP. VIII.

REGISTERING OPERATIONS.

(45.) One of the most singular advantages wederive from machinery is in the check which it affordsagainst the inattention, the idleness, or the knavery,of human agents. Few occupations are more weari-some than counting a series of repetitions of the samefact; the number of paces we walk affords a tolerablygood measure of distance passed over, but the valueof this is much enhanced by possessing an instrument,the pedometer, which will count for us the number ofsteps we have made. A piece of mechanism of thiskind is sometimes applied to count the number of turnsmade by the wheel of a carriage, and thus to indicatethe distance travelled : an instrument similar in itsobject, but differing in its construction, has been usedfor counting the number of strokes made by a steam-engine, and the number of coins struck in a press.One of the simplest instruments for counting anyseries of operations, was contrived by Mr. Donkin.*(46.) Another instrument for registering is used insome establishments for calendering and embossing.Many hundred thousand yards of calicoes and stuffspass weekly through these operations, and as theprice paid for the process is small, the value of thetime spent in measuring them would bear a consi-derable proportion to the profit. A machine has,

* Transactions of the Society of Arts, 1819, p. 116.