induced to grant its aid, and the
inventor himself spent a portion of his private fortune in the prosecution
of his undertaking. He travelled through several of the countries of
Europe, examining different systems of machinery; and some of the results
of his investigations were published in the admirable little work, _Economy
of Machines and Manufactures_ (1834). The great calculating engine was
never completed; the constructor apparently desired to adopt a new
principle when the first specimen was nearly complete, to make it not a
difference but an analytical engine, and the government declined to accept
the further risk (see CALCULATING MACHINES). From 1828 to 1839 Babbage was
Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge. He contributed largely to
several scientific periodicals, and was instrumental in founding the
Astronomical (1820) and Statistical (1834) Societies. He only once
endeavoured to enter public life, when, in 1832, he stood unsuccessfully
for the borough of Finsbury. During the later years of his life he resided
in London, devoting himself to the construction of machines capable of
performing arithmetical and even algebraical calculations. He died at
London on the 18th of October 1871. He gives a few biographical details in
his _Passages from the Life of a Philosopher_ (1864), a work which throws
considerable light upon his somewhat peculiar character. His works,
pamphlets and papers were very numerous; in the _Passages_ he enumerates
eighty separate writings. Of these the most important, besides the few
already mentioned, are _Tables of Logarithms_ (1826); _Comparative View of
the Various Institutions for the Assurance of Lives_ (1826); _Decline of
Science in England_ (1830); _Ninth Bridgewater Treatise_ (1837); _The
Exposition of 1851_ (1851).

See _Monthly Notices, Royal Astronomical Society_, vol. 32.

BABEL, the native name of the city called Babylon (_q.v._) by the Greeks,
the modern _Hillah_. It means "gate of the god," not "gate of the gods,"
corresponding to the Assyrian _B[=a]b-ili_. According to Gen. xi 1-9 (J),
mankind, after the deluge, travelled from the mountain of the East, where
the ark had rested, and settled in Shinar. Here they attempted to build a
city and a tower whose top might reach unto heaven, but were miraculously
prevented by their language being confounded. In this way the diversity of
human speech and the dispersion of mankind were accounted for; and in Gen.
xi. 9 (J) an