B chapter.indd - Charles Babbage Institute - University of Minnesota

234
Erwin Tomash Library
Byrne, Oliver Byrne, Oliver
mention of the Analytical Engine. Leslie Comrie was
in the audience and remarked that it was now possible
to obtain commercial machines that would do the job of
Babbage’s Difference Engine. He had recently ordered a
National Cash Register Company National accounting
machine that could be used in that manner. Comrie was
to use that machine to produce and check many different
sets of tables.
Illustrations available:
First page
B 308
Byrne, Oliver (1810–1880)
B 308
Byrne’s timber and log book, ready reckoner and price
book, for lumber dealers and ship builders, merchants
and traders, farmers and drovers, and all others
engaged in buying or selling at either wholesale or
retail.
Year: 1878
Place: New York
Publisher: The American News Company, Orange Judd
Company
Edition: 1st
Language: English
Binding: printed paper boards
Pagination: pp. [5], 5–178, [1]
Size: 153x93 mm
Little factual information seems to be available on
Oliver Byrne’s life, though he published more than
twenty volumes and is described variously in them.
According to one or another of his publications, Byrne
was Surveyor-General of the Falkland Islands, Professor
of Mathematics in the College for Civil Engineers,
Consulting Actuary to the Philanthropic Life Assurance
Society etc. etc. etc. DeMorgan (A Budget of Paradoxes,
1872, pp. 199–200) is scathing about an item written by
Byrne in which he attempts to use mathematical symbols
to prove statements in the creed of St. Athanasius.
This volume, unlike several of Byrne’s other works, has
nothing to do with dual arithmetic but is a standard ready
reckoner for the timber trade. One unusual item, not
encountered in other ready reckoners, is a table listing the
statutes of limitations for assaults, slanders, judgements,
etc. for each state in the U.S. and for Ontario and Quebec
in Canada. Perhaps, given his somewhat checkered
career, Byrne had experience in such matters.
Illustrations available:
Title page
B 309
Byrne, Oliver (1810–1880)
B 309
Byrne’s treatise on navigation and nautical astronomy
Year: 1877
Place: London
Publisher: Richard Bentley & Son
Edition: 2nd