THOMAS, Charles Xavier de Colmar.”The Arithmometer“, in Nature, August 21, 1873, pp 326-327, the weekly issue of pp 317-336, removed from a larger bound volume. $150/.
There is also a nice line drawing of the instrument, which appears here–in 1873–pretty much the way it looked when Thomas first began to make the thing back in 1820. The big deal about the arithmometer is that it became the first mass-produced calculating machine when it entered into production in 1852–it was, basically, the birth of the calculating machine business. And not of course simply because of the mass production but because it was so reliable and dependable, and did the job.
Also in this issue: J. Herschel’s “The Flight of Birds” and Henry Proctor’s “The Origin of the Nerve Force”.