Note 20 — NOTE B.—Page 11.

A fuller account of the manner in which the signs are regulated, is given on in Mons. Menabrea’s Memoir, pages 17, 18. He himself expresses doubts (in a note of his own at the bottom of the latter page) as to his having been likely to hit on the precise methods really adopted; his explanation In being merely a conjectural one. That it does accord precisely with the fact is a remarkable circumstance, and affords a convincing proof how completely Mons. Menabrea has been imbued with the true spirit of the invention. Indeed the whole of the above Memoir is a striking production, when we consider that Mons. Menabrea had had but very slight means for obtaining any adequate ideas respecting the Analytical Engine. It requires however a considerable acquaintance with the abstruse and complicated nature of such a subject, in order fully to appreciate the penetration of the writer who could take so just and comprehensive a view of it upon such limited opportunity.