Time Telling through the Ages Harry Chase Brearley 1265 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Time Telling through the Ages
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Time Telling through the Ages

Author: Harry Chase Brearley

Release date: January 9, 2015 [eBook #47928]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47928

Credits: Produced by Chris Curnow, MWS and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIME TELLING
THROUGH THE AGES ***

TIME TELLING
THROUGH THE AGES

The Spirit of Time
Back of History, back of Civilization, back of
the visible Universe itself, we sense the

unending sequence of all development which we
know as time.

TIME TELLING
through the Ages
BY
Harry C. Brearley

Published by
Doubleday, Page & Co.
for Robert H. Ingersoll & Brothers.
NEW YORK, 1919

PREPARED
under the direction of
The Brearley Service Organization

Copyright 1919
Robt. H. Ingersoll & Brothers.
NEW YORK

PREFACE
n the midst of the world war, when ordinary forms of celebration seemed

I unsuitable, this book was conceived by Robt. H. Ingersoll & Bro., as a
fitting memento of the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of their entrance into the
watch industry, and is offered as a contribution to horological art and
science. Its publication was deferred until after the signing of the peace
covenant.
The research work for fact material was performed with devoted fidelity
and discrimination by Mrs. Katherine Morrissey Dodge, who consulted
libraries, trade publications, horological schools and authorities in leading
watch companies. The following were helpfully kind to her: New York
Public Library, New York City; The Congressional Library, Washington, D.
C.; Newark Public Library, Newark, New Jersey; The Jewelers' Circular,
New York City; Keystone Publishing Company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;
Mr. John J. Bowman, Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Major Paul M.
Chamberlain, Chicago, Illinois; Hamilton Watch Company, Lancaster,
Pennsylvania; Mr. Henry G. Abbott, of the Calculagraph Company, New
York City, and others.
Credit is also due to Mr. Walter D. Teague, the well-known artist of New
York City, who acted as art editor and supervised the preparation of
illustrations, typography and other art and mechanical features.
The photographic compositions are the result of the enthusiasm, the
understanding and the art of Mr. Lejaren a' Hiller, of New York City. In this
connection the courtesy of Mr. Henry W. Kent, Secretary of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York City, in permitting the use of collections of the
museum in the preparation of illustrations, is appreciated.
Harry C. Brearley

CONTENTS
PAGE
Foreword 11
Chapter i, The Man Animal and Nature's Time Pieces 15
Chapter ii, The Land Between the Rivers 21
Chapter iii, How Man Began to Model After Nature 36
Chapter iv, Telling Time by the "Water Thief" 49
Chapter v, How Father Time Got his Hour Glass 59
Chapter vi, The Clocks Which Named Themselves 66
Chapter vii, The Modern Clock and Its Creators 77
Chapter viii, The Watch That Was Hatched From The Nuremburg Egg 94
Chapter ix, How a Mechanical Toy Became a Scientific Time Piece 106
Chapter x, The "Worshipful Company" and English Watchmaking 118
Chapter xi, What Happened in France and Switzerland 131
Chapter xii, How an American Industry Came on Horseback 147
Chapter xiii, America Learns to Make Watches 161
Chapter xiv, Checkered History 176
Chapter xv, "The Watch That Wound Forever" 184
Chapter xvi, "The Watch That Made The Dollar Famous" 196
Chapter xvii, Putting Fifty Million Watches Into Service 206
Chapter xviii, The End of the Journey 218
Appendix A, How it Works 230
Appendix B, Bibliography 235
Appendix C, American Watch Manufacturers (Chronology) 241
Appendix D, Well Known Watch Collections 250
Appendix E, Encyclopedic Dictionary 253

ILLUSTRATIONS
TO FACE PAGE
The Spirit of Time
The Cave Man and the Moving Shadow 16
Time Telling in the "Land Between the Rivers" 32
The First Recorded Sun Dial 40
The Clepsydra, or Water Clock 56
Types of the Earliest Time Tellers 64
Galileo Discovering the Principle of the Pendulum 72
A Time Piece of the Middle Ages 80
Ancestors of the Watch 88
The First Pocket Time Piece 96
The "Nuremburg Egg," the First Real Watch 104
First Forms of the Watch 112
Sixteenth Century Watches 120
Late—In Spite of His Two Watches 128
Seventeenth Century Watches 136
The Swiss "Manufacturer" and a Craftsman 144
The First Yankee Clock Maker 152
"Grandfather's Clocks" 160
Eighteenth Century Watches 168
"Quantity Production" in 1850 176
A Glimpse of a Giant Industry 200
Twentieth Century Watches 208
Time Telling in the Dark 216
Time Pieces Vital to Industry 224

FOREWORD
t was a moonless night in No Man's Land. A man in khaki stood silently
I waiting in a frontline trench. In the darkness, his eyes were drawn,
fascinated, to the luminous figures on the watch-dial at his wrist. A
splinter of pale light, which he knew to be the hour-hand, rested upon the
figure 11. A somewhat longer splinter crept steadily from the figure 12.
"Past eleven," he whispered to himself. "Less than twenty minutes now."
To the right and to the left of him, he, now and then, could see his waiting
comrades in the blackness of the trench, their outlines vaguely appearing
and disappearing with the intermittent flares of distant star-shells. He knew
that they, too, were intent upon tiny figures in small luminous circles and
upon the steady, relentless progress of other gleaming minute-hands which
moved in absolute unison with the one upon his own wrist. He knew, also,
that far in the rear, clustered about their guns, were other comrades tensely
counting off the passing minutes.
At twenty minutes past eleven, the artillery bombardment would begin and
would continue until exactly midnight. Then would come the barrage—the
protecting curtain of bursting shells behind which the khaki-clad figure and
his companions would advance upon the enemy's trenches—perhaps also
upon eternity.
How strangely silent it seemed after the crashing chaos of the last few days!
There were moments when the rumble of distant guns almost died away,
and he could hear the faint ticking of his timepiece or a whispered word out
of the darkness near at hand. He likened the silence to the lull before a
storm.
Five minutes thus went by!
In another fifteen minutes, the fury of the bombardment would begin; it
would doubtless draw an equally furious bombardment from the enemy's
guns.

At twelve-ten plus forty-five seconds, he and his platoon were to "go over
the top" and plunge into the inferno of No Man's Land. That was the
moment set for the advance—the moment when the barrage would lift and
move forward.
The slender hand on the glowing dial stole steadily onward. It was ten
minutes after now.
Ten minutes after eleven—just one hour plus forty-five seconds to wait! His
thoughts flew back to his home in the great city beyond the sea.
Ten minutes after eleven—why that would be only ten minutes after six in
New York! How plainly he could picture the familiar scenes of rushing,
bustling life back there! Crowds were now pouring into the subways and
surface cars or climbing to the level of the "L's." This was the third—the
latest homeward wave. The five o'clock people had, for the most part,
already reached their homes and were thinking about their dinner; the five-
thirties were well upon their way.
How the millions of his native city and of other cities and towns, and even
of the country districts, all moved upon schedule! Clocks and watches told
them when to get up, when to eat their breakfasts, when to catch their trains,
reach their work, eat their lunches, and return to their homes. Newspapers
came out at certain hours; mails were delivered at definite moments; stores
and mills and factories all began their work at specified times.
What a tremendous activity there was, back there in America, and how
smoothly it all ran—smooth as clock-work! Why, you might almost say it
ran by clock-work! The millions of watches in millions of pockets, the
millions of clocks on millions of walls, all running steadily together—these
were what kept the complicated machinery of modern life from getting
tangled and confused.
Yes; but what did people do before they had such timepieces? Back in the
very beginning, before they had invented or manufactured anything—far
back in the days of the caveman—even those people must have had some
method of telling time.
A bright star drew above the shadowy outline of a hill. At first the man in
khaki thought that it might be a distant star-shell; but no, it was too steady
and too still. Ah yes, the stars were there, even in the very beginning—and

the moon and the sun, they were as regular then as now; perhaps these were
the timepieces of his earliest ancestors.
A slight rustle of anticipation stirred through the waiting line and his
thoughts flashed back to the present. His eyes fixed themselves again on the
ghostly splinters of light at his wrist. The long hand had almost reached the
figure 4—the moment when the bombardment would begin.
He and his comrades braced themselves—and the night was shattered by
the crash of artillery.

CHAPTER ONE
The Man Animal and Nature's Timepieces
he story of the watch that you hold in your hand to-day began countless

T centuries ago, and is as long as the history of the human race. When our
earliest ancestors, living in caves, noted the regular succession of day
and night, and saw how the shadows changed regularly in length and
direction as day grew on toward night, then was the first, faint, feeble germ
of the beginning of time-reckoning and time-measurement. The world was
very, very young, so far as man was concerned, when there occurred some
such scene as this:
It is early morning. The soft, red sandstone cliffs are bathed in the golden
glow of dawn. As the great sun climbs higher in the eastern sky, the sharply
outlined shadow of the opposite cliff descends slowly along the western
wall of the narrow canyon. A shaggy head appears from an opening, half-
way up the cliff, and is followed by the grotesque, stooping figure of a long-
armed man, hairy and nearly naked, save for a girdle of skins. He grasps a
short, thick stick, to one end of which a sharpened stone has been bound by
many crossing thongs, and, without a word, he makes his way down among
the bushes and stones toward the bed of the creek.
Another head appears at the same opening in the cliff—that of a brown-
skinned woman with high cheek-bones, a flat nose, and tangled hair. She
shouts after the retreating form of the man, and he stops, and turns abruptly.
Then he points to the edge of the shadow far above his, and, with a
sweeping gesture, indicates a large angular rock lying in the bed of the
stream near by. Apparently understanding the woman nods and the man
soon disappears into the brush.
The forenoon wears along, and the line of shadow creeps down the face of
the canyon wall until it falls at last across the angular rock against which
the dashing waters of the stream are breaking. The woman who has been
moving about near the cave opening begins to look expectant and to cast
quick glances up and down the canyon. Presently the rattle of stones caught
her ear and she sees the long-armed man picking his way down a steep trail.

He still carries his stone-headed club in one hand, while from the other
there swings by the tail the body of a small, furry animal. Her eyes flash
hungrily, and she shows her strong, white teeth in a grin of anticipation.

The Cave Man and the Moving Shadow
"I'll be back when the shadow touches that
stone." It was by such crude expedients that
our primitive ancestors timed their
engagements.

Perhaps it has not been hard to follow the meaning of this little drama of
primitive human need. Our own needs are not so very different, even in this
day, although our manners and methods have somewhat changed since the
time of the caveman. Like ourselves, this savage pair awoke with sharpened
appetite, but, unlike ourselves, they had neither pantry nor grocery store to
supply them. Their meal-to-be, which was looking for its own breakfast
among the rocks and trees, must be found and killed for the superior needs
of mankind, and the hungry woman had called after her mate in order to
learn when he expected to return.
No timepieces were available, but that great timepiece of nature, the sun, by
which we still test the accuracy of our clocks and watches, and a shadow
falling upon a certain stone, served the need of this primitive cave-dweller
in making and keeping an appointment.
The sun has been, from the earliest days, the master of Time. He answered
the caveman's purpose very well. The rising of the sun meant that it was
time to get up; his setting brought darkness and the time to go to sleep. It
was a simple system, but, then, society in those days was simple—and
strenuous.
For example, it was necessary to procure a new supply of food nearly every
day, as prehistoric man knew little of preserving methods. Procuring food
was not so easy as one might think. It meant long and crafty hunts for game,
and journeys in search of fruits and nuts. All this required daylight. By
night-time the caveman was ready enough to crawl into his rock-home and
sleep until the sun and his clamoring appetite called him forth once more. In
fact, his life was very like that of the beasts and the birds.
But, of course, he was a man, after all. This means that a human brain was
slowly developing behind his sloping forehead, and he could not stop
progressing.
After a while—a long while, probably—we find him and his fellows
gathered together into tribes and fighting over the possession of hunting-
grounds or what not, after the amiable human fashion. Thus, society was
born, and with it, organization. Tribal warfare implied working together;
working together required planning ahead and making appointments;
making appointments demanded the making of them by something—by
some kind of a timepiece that could indicate more than a single day, since

the daily position of light and shadows was now no longer sufficient. Man
looked to the sky again and found such a timepiece.
Next to the sun, the moon is the most conspicuous of the heavenly objects.
Its name means "the Measurer of Time." As our first ancestors perceived,
the moon seemed to have the strange property of changing shape;
sometimes it was a brilliant disk; sometimes a crescent; sometimes it failed
to appear at all. These changes occurred over and over again—always in the
same order, and the same number of days apart. What, then, could be more
convenient than for the men inhabiting neighboring valleys to agree to meet
at a certain spot, with arms and with several days' provisions, at the time of
the next full moon?—moonlight being also propitious for a night attack.
For this and other reasons, the moon was added to the sun as a human
timepiece, and man began to show his mental resources—he was able to
plan ahead. Note, however, that he was not concerned with measuring the
passage of time, but merely with fixing upon a future date; it was not a
question of how long but of when.
This presumptuous, two-legged fighting animal, from whom we are
descended, and many of whose instincts we still retain, began to enlarge his
warfare, and thereby to improve his organization. For the sake of his own
safety, he learned to combine with his fellows, finding strength in numbers,
like the wolves in the pack; or, like ants and bees, finding in the combined
efforts of many a means of gaining for each individual more food and better
shelter than he could win for himself alone.
For example, it was possible that a neighboring tribe, instead of waiting to
be attacked, was planning an attack upon its own account. It would not do
to be surprised at night. Sentries must be established to keep watch while
others slept, and to waken their comrades in case of need. Our very word
"watch" is derived from the old Anglo-Saxon word "waeccan," meaning
"wake." And yet people who tried to watch for long at a stretch would be
apt to doze. They must be relieved at regular times; it was a matter of
necessity, but how could one measure time at night?
Where man has been confronted with a pressing problem he has generally
found its solution. Probably in this case the stars gave him a clue. If the sky
were clear, their positions would help to divide the night into "watches" of
convenient length.

Thus did primitive man begin to study the skies. No longer a mere animal,
he was beginning, quite unconsciously, to give indications of becoming a
student.

CHAPTER TWO
The Land Between the Rivers
ow we must jump over ages so vast in duration that all of our recorded

N history is by comparison, the merest fragment of time. During the
prehistoric period, known to us only by certain bones, drawings, and
traces of tombs and dwellings, and by a few rude implements, weapons, and
ornaments, we must think of the human family as developing very, very
slowly—groping in the dawn of civilization while it ate and slept, hunted,
and fought, and, gradually spread over various regions of the earth.
It was in this interval, also, that man learned the use of fire and the
fashioning of various tools. His club gave place to the spear, the knife, and
the arrow-head weapons that were made at first by chipping flakes of flint
to a sharp edge. Then, as his knowledge and skill slowly increased, he
learned to work the softer metals and made his weapons and his tools of
bronze. Meanwhile, he was taught, by observing in nature, to tame and to
breed animals for his food and use, and to plant near home what crops he
wished to reap, instead of seeking them where they grew in a wild state.
Thus, he became a herdsman and farmer.
He no longer lived in caves or rude huts, but in a low, flat-roofed house
built of heavy, rough stone, and, later, of stones hewn into shape or of
bricks baked in the burning sunshine. Stone and clay carved or molded into
images, and the colored earth, smeared into designs upon his walls, gave
him the beginnings of art. And from drawing rude pictures of simple
objects, as a child begins to draw even before knowing what it means to
write, primitive man came at last to the greatest power of all—the art of
writing.
Through all this age man continued to regulate his expanding affairs by the
timepieces of the sky—the sun, the moon, and the stars. He divided time
roughly into days and parts of days, into nights and watches of the night,
into moons and seasons—determining the latter probably by the migration
of birds, the budding of trees and flowers, the falling of leaves and other
happenings in nature. But never guessing how greatly interested future

generations would be in the way he did things, he has left only a few
records of his activities and these have been preserved by the merest
accident. The historian and the press-agent were the inventions of later
days.
Thus we come down the ages to a date about 4000 B. C. at the very
beginning of recorded history, and to one of the most ancient civilizations in
the world—that of the region which we now call Mesopotamia.
Mesopotamia lies in southwestern Asia between the Tigris and Euphrates
Rivers and not far from the traditional site of the Garden of Eden. The name
by which we know it comes from the Greek, and means, "The land between
the rivers" but the people who dwelt there at the time to which we refer
called it the "Land of Shinar."
This is the region in which long afterward—so the Bible tells us—Abraham
left his native town, Ur of the Chaldees, to make his pioneer journey to
Palestine. This is the land where the great cities of Babylon and Nineveh
afterward arose; Babylon, where Daniel interpreted the dream of King
Nebuchadnezzar, and Nineveh, whence the Assyrians, the fierce conquerors
of the ancient world, "came down like a wolf on the fold" against the
peaceful Kingdom of Judah. It is the land where, thousands of years later,
the famous Arab capital of Bagdad was built; it is the land of Harun al
Raschid and the "Arabian Nights," and the land which the British Army
conquered in a remarkable campaign against the Turks and Germans.
Mesopotamia is a land of color, brilliant life, wonders and romance. Many
students and statesmen believe that it will, in days to come, grow fruitful
and populous again, that it will once more be great among the countries of
the earth. It is a flat region, with wide-stretching plains. For the most part,
there are no hills to limit the view of the skies, and the heavens are brilliant
upon starry nights.
In this favored portion of the earth, a high civilization had already been
developed in the very earliest days of which we have authentic historic
record. The caveman type had long disappeared and had been forgotten;
people were already living in well-built cities of brick and stone. Their
houses were low and flat-roofed, but the cities were surrounded with high
and massive walls to protect them from enemies, and here and there within
rose great square towers which were also temples. Perhaps the famous
Tower of Babel was one of these, for Babel, of course, is another name for

Babylon, and its people are known to have worshipped on the tops of
towers, as if, by so doing, they could reach nearer to their gods. The ancient
Chaldeans were religious by nature, and because the skies contained the
greatest things of which they knew, they identified many of their gods with
the sun, the moon, and the stars, and they worshipped these in their temples.
Thus, the sun was the god Shamash, the moon was Sin, Jupiter was Marduk,
Venus was Ishtar, Mars was Nergal, Mercury was Nebo, and Saturn was
Ninib.
In consequence, their priests came to give much of their time to a study of
the movements of the stars. These priests, who were shrewd and learned
men, discovered a great deal, but they kept their knowledge closely within
the circle of their caste. Learning was not for everyone in those days
because the priests posed as magicians able to interpret dreams, to explain
signs, and to foretell the future. This brought them much revenue; as
prophets they were not unmindful of profits.
When we consider that these astrologer-astronomers did not have telescopes
or our other modern instruments, it is marvelous to see how many of the
laws of the heavenly bodies they really did find out for themselves. Books
could be filled, with the story of their discoveries. For example, they
observed that the sun slowly changed the points at which it rose and set.
During certain months, the place of sunrise traveled northward, and at the
same time the sun rose higher in the sky, and at noon was more nearly
overhead. At this time, the days were also longer, because the sun was
above the horizon more of the time, and then it was summer. During certain
other months, the sun traveled south again, and all these conditions were
reversed; the days grew shorter and shorter, and it was winter. This is, of
course, exactly what the sun appears to do here and now, and we may
observe it for ourselves. But these Babylonian priests were the first to study
these phenomena and accomplish something by applying their reasoning
powers to the facts that presented themselves. They took the time which
was consumed in this motion from the furthest north to the furthest south
and return, and from that worked out their year.
In order to calculate time, they next devised the zodiac, a sort of belt
encircling the heavens and showing the course of the sun, and the location
of twelve constellations, or groups of stars, through which he would be seen

to pass if his light did not blot out theirs. They divided the region of these
twelve constellations into the same number of equal parts; consequently, the
sun passing from any given point around the heavens to the same point,
occupied in so doing an amount of time that was arbitrarily divided into
twelfths.
But they also devised another twelve-part division of the year. They noticed
that the moon went through her phases, from full moon to full moon in
about thirty days. So one moon, or one month, corresponded with the
passage of the sun through one "sign" of the zodiac. Our own word "month"
might have been written "moonth," since that is its meaning. That gave
them a year of twelve months, each month having thirty days, or three
hundred and sixty days in all.
Then from the seven heavenly bodies which they had identified with seven
great gods, they got the idea of a week of seven days, one day for the
special worship of each god and named for him.
In like manner, they divided the day and the night each into twelve hours;
and the hour into sixty minutes and these again into sixty seconds. The
choice of "sixty" was not a chance shot or accident; it was carefully selected
for practical reasons since these old astronomers were wise and level-
headed men. No lower number can be divided by so many other numbers as
can sixty. Just look at your watch for a moment and notice how simply and
naturally the minutes, divided into fives, fit into place between the figures
for the hours, and, because sixty divides evenly by fifteen and thirty, we
have quarter-hours and half-hours.
Therefore, we should realize, with a bit of gratitude, that we owe these
divisions of time, of which we still make use, to the ancient magician-
priests of Babylon and Chaldea, thousands and thousands of years ago.
In doing all this, these early scientists developed at the same time an
elaborate system of so-called "magic" by which they pretended to foretell
future events and the destinies of men born on certain days. This was an
important part of their priestcraft, and probably it was not the least
profitable part. In fact, the priests called themselves magi, meaning "wise
men" in their language, and our word "magic" is derived from "magi."

This magic, or prophetic study of the stars, we call astrology to distinguish
it from the true science of astronomy. But mingled with it all, these priests
possessed a wonderful amount of genuine scientific knowledge. Their year
of three hundred and sixty days was, of course, five days too short, as they
presently found out for themselves. In six years, the difference would
amount to thirty days, which was exactly the length of one of their months.
So they corrected the calendar very easily by doubling the month Adar once
in six years. Thus, every sixth year contained thirteen months instead of
twelve; that was the origin of the leap-year principle which we still use,
although more accurately. It can be seen that, with all their superstition and
their befooling of other people, the priests themselves were by no means
ignorant; they were really keen observers.
This calendar, by which we still measure the years and the seasons, is so
interesting a thing that it is worth while to pause for a moment in our story
in order to trace out its later development. The Babylonian calendar
remained practically the same up to the time of Julius Caesar, only a few
years before the Christian Epoch. The names of the months had naturally
been changed into the Latin language; and the Romans, instead of doubling
a whole month, had come to add the extra five days to several months, one
day to each. That is the reason for some of our months having thirty-one
days.
When Caesar was Dictator of Rome, it had become known that the year of
exactly 365 days was still a little too short. It should have been 365¼. So
Caesar in reforming the calendar, provided that the first, third, fifth,
seventh, ninth, and eleventh months should be given thirty-one days each,
and that the others should have thirty days, except in the case of February
which should have its thirtieth day only once in four years. A little later, his
successor, the Emperor Augustus, after whom the month of August is
named, decided that his month must be as long as July, which was Julius
Caesar's month. Therefore, he stole a day from February and added one to
August; then he changed the following months by making September and
November thirty-day months and giving thirty-one days to October and
December.
The Julian calendar, with these changes by Augustus, remained in use until
the year A. D. 1582, nearly a century after the discovery of America. Then it
was learned that the average year of 365¼ days was still not exactly right

according to the motion of the earth around the sun. The exact time is 365
days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds, being 11 minutes and 14 seconds
less than 365¼ days. When, therefore, we add a day to the year every four
years, as Caesar commanded, we are really adding too much. This excess
was corrected by Pope Gregory XII in 1582, when he changed the calendar
so that the last year of a century should be a leap-year only when its number
could be divided evenly by 400. Thus, 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not leap-
years, though the year 2000 will be. This new calendar, which is the one
now generally in use in most of the world, is known as the Gregorian
calendar.
Thus the plan and principle of the calendar, as well as our smaller divisions
of time, in spite of the small changes by Caesar and Gregory, have remained
from the Babylonian days down to the present; and we have done nothing to
their system in all these thousands of years, except, incidentally to correct
it.
Only once in history have the measures of the ancient calendar been set
aside. That was in France at the time of the Revolution, when the French
people, in their passionate hatred of all the traditional things that reminded
them of their past sufferings, invented a new calendar, in which they
changed the names of months and days, and counted the years from 1792,
the first of their liberty. They also abolished all Sundays and religious
festivals, and divided the day into ten hours. This played havoc with time-
keeping, and caused great confusion. Watches and clocks were made with
one circle of numbers for the new hours, and another, within, on which
were shown the old hours which people could understand. But this
complication lasted only a few years, for the traditional system was soon
restored.
To return again to the era of the first calendar. While the wise men of
Mesopotamia were engaged in mingling science and mystery, another
civilization, the Egyptian, was developing upon the banks of the Nile and
passing through much of the same stages. In due course the Persians
conquered both Mesopotamia and Egypt and absorbed their knowledge.
Still later the wonderful Greek nation combined astronomy with
mathematics in a way which makes us wonder to this day. This is the way in
which civilization has grown. Race after race, during century after century
has added its new knowledge and discoveries to that which has been

learned before. It is interesting to note that the astronomy of the
Babylonians appears to have been paralleled independently by other ancient
civilizations between which there was no apparent possibility of
intercourse. The Chinese in the East and the Aztecs of Mexico, on the other
side of the world, invented practically the same astronomical instruments as
the Babylonians and made similar discoveries. All methods of indicating
time have been steps upon the long road which has led to the making of
modern timepieces.
The progressive Greeks did not permit knowledge to be monopolized by the
priesthood and probably their common people knew more about the stars
than most of the population of America do to this day. Sailors possessed no
compasses, but they voyaged very skilfully with the guidance of the stars,
while farmers, lacking our modern weather-reports and crop-bulletins,
learned to govern their planting and harvesting by the positions of the
heavenly bodies.
In one sense, this is time-telling and in another it is not, but our ideas of
time and astronomy have always been so closely associated that it is hard to
think of one apart from the other. This is because the movements of the
earth, which produce night and day and the changes of the seasons, are our
supreme court of time, our final standard for its measurement. And since we
cannot see the earth move, we judge of its motion by the apparent
movement of the heavenly bodies, just as we realize the movement of a
train by watching the landscape rush past us as we go.
Some of the great Greek scientists, by the way, had even learned to foretell
eclipses of the sun. According to Herodotus the one which occurred on May
28th, in the year 585 B. C., was predicted by Thales of Miletus, one of the
famous "Seven Wise Men." This event was also celebrated because of
another interesting association; it stopped a battle between the armies of the
Medes and the Lydians. Perhaps we can guess at what happened.
Undoubtedly the eclipse was interpreted by the armies as a sign of divine
anger, for the ancients identified many of the forces and objects of nature as
gods, and Phoebus Apollo, who it was believed daily drove his flaming
chariot across the sky, was the great divinity of the sun. Furthermore, these
gods were very apt to meddle with happenings upon the earth, particularly
with wars, as anyone who has read the "Iliad" will recall.

Time Telling in the "Land Between the
Rivers"
The Chaldean priests in ancient Mesopotamia
told time by the stars, thus combining science
with religion.

Imagine, then, the two armies about to go to battle when suddenly
something appeared to go wrong with the sun. There to their amazement, in
a cloudless sky, a dimming shadow touched the edge of the sun's shining
disk and began slowly to blot it out. The warriors forgot to fight each other

and stared in terror at the sky. The sun dwindled to a crescent; a weird
twilight fell upon the earth. Finally, the last thread of brightness disappeared
leaving a dull circle in the sky, surrounded by faint bands of light. The
gloom of night fell upon the ground. Birds and animals went to their rest.
No further evidence was needed by the superstitious and frightened
soldiers. It must be true that Phoebus Apollo was grievously angered, and
they forthwith laid down their arms. The sun god, of course, soon showed
his approval of this action by coming back into the sky.
This is only one of many tales which might be told to show the state of
superstition in those days. Learning, then, was confined to the few, and in
many instances was used to mystify or terrorize the mass of the people and
thus keep them submissive. At best, new ideas were slow to grow or to be
believed.
For example, Pythagorus, the great Greek philosopher of the sixth century
B. C., believed the earth to be a globe, but it was not until Columbus
discovered America—twenty centuries later—that people generally began
to know that it was not flat. Even in these modern days of the public school,
the press, the telephone, the telegraph, the wireless and other means for the
wide-spread distribution of knowledge, how slowly does truth find its way
to acceptance! To this day, superstition is by no means dead.
Even Mark Twain, who scoffed at superstition all his life, often said that, as
he came into the world with Halley's Comet, in the year 1835, so he
expected to die in 1910, the year of the comet's next appearance. Strangely
enough, his half-jesting prophecy was fulfilled, for he really did die in that
year.
Astronomers to-day can figure out in advance what is to happen in the
heavens with an exactness which would have seemed magical in olden
times, and is hardly less astonishing even now. Their power is largely due to
improved scientific instruments, proficiency in mathematics and greater
accuracy in the measurement of time. Not only is the date of an eclipse of
the sun now known in advance, but so also is the exact path of the shadow
across the world, and the instant of its appearance in any given place.
We now have glanced briefly at a few of the features of early humanity's
dependence upon the clocks of nature and the way in which they influenced

its manner of life. We still depend upon these great primeval timepieces and
we do it for the most part unconsciously, for our master clocks must still be
set by the motion of the heavenly bodies.
That motion, which now we know to be really the revolution of our earth, is
still the legislator and supreme court of time. But we have learned to make
and carry everywhere a wonderful machine, whose revolving wheels and
pointing hands keep tryst with the stars in the heavens and move to the
rhythm of wheeling worlds. And so familiar is this talisman of man's
making, that we forget to look beyond it or think of time at all save as the
position of the hands upon the dial.
We carry with us carelessly a toy which tells tales upon the solar system—
our watch is a pocket universe.

CHAPTER THREE
How Man Began to Model After Nature
e now have reached a point far ahead of our story and must take a

W backward step. We have been seeing man as a mere observer of
nature; but man doesn't stop with nature as he finds it—his man-brain
drives him forward; he must make improvements of his own. Animals may
live and die and leave no trace save their bones, which for the most part
soon disappear, but man always leaves traces behind him. He has always
interfered with nature, or rather has modeled after nature, seeing in her
work the revelations of principles and laws that he might utilize in varying
ways for his own benefit and progress. Our material civilization is built up
from the accumulated results of all this study and control of nature by
hundreds of millions of busy brains and hands, through tens of thousands of
years.
Here we are, then, living, in a sense on the top of the ages of human history,
like the dwellers on a coral island. Hundreds of generations have toiled to
raise the vast structure for us, like the little coral "polyps" which build their
own lives into the mass, yet we take it all as a matter of course and rarely
give a thought to the marvelous ways by which it has come about. You may
have just glanced at your watch. To you, perhaps, a watch has always
seemed merely a small mechanism which was bought in a store. That is
true, and yet—remember this—the first manufacturer who had a hand in
producing that watch for you, may have been a caveman.
In order to appreciate this development, let us return, therefore, for another
rapid view of prehistoric times; life in its crudest form—one day much like
another—a scanty population, huddled in little groups in places naturally
sheltered—the simplest physical needs to be provided for—little thought of
the past or care for the future—time-reckoning reduced to the single
thought of appointment—no reason for measuring intervals—in these and
other respects antiquity presented the greatest possible contrast to our
complicated modern life.

The long-armed man of our first chapter noticed that as the sun moved, the
shadows of the cliff also moved, as did all other shadows. As he formed
habits of regularity, it was natural for him to perform a certain daily act
when, perhaps, the shadow of a certain tree touched upon a certain stone.
This would be a natural sun-dial.
But a thinner, sharper shadow would be easier to observe; suppose,
therefore, that some successor to the long-armed man set up a pole in some
open space and laid a stone to mark the spot where the shadow fell when
the sun was highest in the heavens. That would be an artificial sun-dial—a
device deliberately planned to accomplish a certain purpose. The man who
first took such a step was probably the first manufacturer who had a hand in
supplying you with your watch. The shaggy mammoth, the terrible saber-
tooth tiger and the eohippus, the small ancestor of our modern horse, must
have been familiar sights when time-recording at the hands of some rude,
unconscious inventor thus began the long story of its development.
One stone reached by the moving shadow would mark only one point of
time each day. Why not place two stones, three stones, or even more and get
more markings? Such a procedure would be more useful because it would
indicate the time of other happenings in the course of the day. The sun
would pass across the skies and the shadow must travel around the pole.
What more natural than to place the stones in a circle and get a series of
these markings?
Of course, as the ages passed, life became more complex—not complex as
we would consider it to-day, but, as compared with its rude beginnings.
New habits were formed, new needs developed, new activities were
undertaken at different periods.
Here, then, was the sprouting of modern civilization—the beginning of that
specializing of each man in his own particular direction that has carried the
world to its present high state of expertness in so many fields. Slowly
steadily, and inevitably this principle of specialization has been developed.
With the increase of laws, for example, certain men came to give them
special study and then to sell their knowledge and skill to other men who
had no opportunity for such study. In course of time, the aggregation of
laws became so great that these lawyers were forced to specialize among
themselves; to-day, therefore, we find a number of classes of law

specialists. The same thing is true of doctors who have limited their practise
until we find those who treat the eye only, or the lungs, the stomach, or the
teeth. Even the treatment of the teeth has been subdivided, some dentists
limiting themselves to extraction and some of them even to the treatment of
a single disease of the gums.
Engineering, too, has branched like a tree and the branches have branched
again and yet again. Electrical engineering has come to be divided into so
many departments that telephone companies employ specialists in many
branches of the engineering profession.
We find the same conditions in any field of thought or activity—all
commercial and industrial life is divided and subdivided; labor is
specialized; writing is specialized; teaching is specialized; even warfare has
become a contest between many kinds of trained specialists, each
employing the tools of his trade; and every man's outlook upon life is
directed chiefly toward the particular corner of the particular field that he
has fitted himself to occupy.
The first step toward this complex condition of the modern world was taken
when each man stopped getting his own food, making his own weapons,
and providing for all his individual wants without dependence upon others.
When he learned to exchange that which he could best produce for that
which some other man had learned to make better than he, the human race
unconsciously turned away from the status of the birds and the beasts and
began the long, slow upward climb that history records.
It was, then, through trade, barter and exchange that man began to acquire
the manners of civilized life. Trade itself became a specialized activity, and
dealers who did nothing but buy and sell, but themselves produced no
material goods, found that a special calling was rightfully theirs. The
modern merchant is the heir of one of the first "specialists" in human
activity, and the misunderstood work of the so-called "middleman" is one of
the bases of modern civilization—a necessary and honorable calling.

The First Recorded Sun Dial
The "Dial of Ahaz" was probably a flight of
curving steps upon which a beam of sunlight
fell. See Isaiah, xxxviii.

Civilization is a thing of the spirit, but it has the support of material things
and it has been truly said that the degree of a people's civilization can be
measured by the multiplicity of its needs. The savage is content with food,
shelter and a covering for his body, but every step in civilization's progress
has a more and more complex material accompaniment, and these

interwoven relationships of modern life in which the question of time is a
most important factor can only be sustained through the use of accurate
time-measure. In other words, modern civilization leans upon the watch.
But here again we have run somewhat ahead of our story which, as a matter
of fact, had only reached the point of primitive sun-dials. But this
anticipation will be excused because of the importance of emphasizing that
the growing interdependence of human relations had made it necessary to
take into account the convenience of a greater and greater number of
people, and this involved closer and closer time-recording in smaller
divisions of time by more exact methods.
The sun-dial underwent so many changes that a volume would be needed to
describe them all. For example, it was found that the shadow of an upright
stick or stone varied from day to day, because, as we have already noticed,
the sun rises farther north in summer in the northern hemisphere than it
does in winter. So the mark for a certain hour would change as the season
changed, and the dial would not indicate time accurately.
Berosus, a Chaldean historian and priest of Bel, or Baal, a god of the old
Babylonian, lived about the year 250 B. C., and hit upon a very ingenious
way of solving this difficulty. He made the dial hollow like the inside of a
bowl. Into this the shadow was cast by a little round ball or bead at the end
of a pointer that stood horizontally out over the bowl.
Now the sky itself is like a great bowl or inverted hemisphere, and,
howsoever the sun moved upon it, the shadow would move in the same way
upon the inside of the bowl or hemisphere. And by drawing lines in the
bowl, similar to the lines of longitude upon the map, the hours could be
correctly measured. The "Hemicycle of Berosus," as it was called, remained
in use for centuries and was the favorite form of sun-dial all through the
classic period of Greece and Rome. Cicero had one at his villa near
Tusculum, and one was found, in 1762, at Pompeii.
But the hemicycle was not easy to make unless it were fairly small, and, if
small, it was not very easy to read. You can see that a shadow which
traveled only a few inches in a whole day would move so slowly that one
could hardly see it go. And the shadow of a round ball is not a clear sharp-
pointed thing like the hand of a watch, whose exact position can be seen
however small it may be. Besides, the ancients were not very particular

about exact timekeeping. They had no trains to catch, and in their leisurely
lives convenience counted for more than doing things "on the minute." So
they still continued using the upright pointer which the Greeks called the
gnomon, meaning "the one who knows."
"Cleopatra's Needle," and other Egyptian obelisks may also have been used
as huge gnomons to cast their shadows upon mammoth dials, for they were
dedicated to the sun. With an object of such great size the shadow would
move rapidly enough to be followed easily by the eye. But of course its
motion would be irregular because of the flat surface of the dial. The word
"dial," by the way, comes from the Latin dies meaning "day," because it
determined the divisions of the day.
Then there was applied the idea of making the shadow move over a hollow
space, such as a walled courtyard, going down one side, across, and up the
other side as the sun went up, across and down the sky. Sometimes light
was used instead of shadow, the place being partially roofed over and a
single beam of light being admitted through a small hole at the southern
end. Men kept track of the motion of this beam as it touched one point after
another during the day.
Do you remember the miracle of the dial of Ahaz, mentioned in the Bible?
Hezekiah the king was sick and despondent, and would not believe that he
could ever recover from his illness or prevail against his enemies. So the
prophet, Isaiah, in an effort to comfort the royal sufferer, made the shadow
return backward ten degrees upon the dial of Ahaz, as a sign from heaven
that his prophecy of the king's future recovery was true. You will find the
story in Isaiah, Chapter thirty-eight.
This dial of Ahaz was probably a curved flight of steps rising like the side
of a huge bowl at one end of the palace courtyard, with either a shadow cast
by a pointer overhead or a beam of light admitted through an opening. It
can be seen that this and similar great dials were applications of the
hemicycle idea on a large scale.
According to our chronology, the dial of Ahaz must have been built during
the eighth century, B. C. Although the sun-dial period was, of course, many
hundreds of years older than this, yet the story of this Hebrew king and
prophet is the first authentic reference to a sun-dial which has been
discovered.

However, the final improvement of the dial was made when it was
discovered that by slanting the pointer, or gnomon, exactly toward the north
pole of the sky—the point where the north star appears at night—the sun's
shadow could be cast upon a flat surface with accurate results in indicating
time.
This may sound simple, but if you will look at a sun-dial such as may still
be found in gardens, you will see that the lines of the hours and minutes are
laid out on certain carefully calculated angles; you will realize that people
had to acquire considerable knowledge before they were capable of making
such calculations. The whole subject of dial-making is so complicated that,
in 1612, there was published a big book of eight hundred pages on the
subject.
The angles of the lines of the sun-dial must be different for different
latitudes. It took that strong-arm race of ancient times, the Romans, a
hundred years to learn this fact. The Romans, at this time, were developing
their civilization from the shoulders downward, while the Greeks and some
of the Greek colonies developed theirs from the shoulders upward. Rome
was a burly power, with powerful military muscles. Whatever it wanted it
went out and took at the point of the sword, as some nations have
endeavored to do in latter days. Thus, the city of Rome became a vast
storehouse of miscellaneous loot—the fruit of other men's brains and hands.
Some conqueror of that day took back with him a sun-dial from the Greek
colony of Sicily. This was set up in Rome, where nobody realized that even
the power of Rome's armies was not able to transplant the angle of the sun
as it shone upon Sicily far to the southward. It was nearly one hundred
years before these self-satisfied robbers found that they had been getting the
wrong time-record from the stolen instrument. Thus, the original owners
had a form of belated revenge, could they but have known it.
One of the largest of all the sun-dials was the one set up by the Roman
Emperor Augustus when he returned from his Egyptian wars bringing with
him an obelisk not unlike the one which now stands near the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in Central Park, New York City. If you can imagine this
Egyptian obelisk, with its strange hieroglyphic characters upon its four
sides, surrounded by a great dial with the figures of the hours marked upon

its surface, you will get an idea of the size of this huge timepiece. However,
it was probably more picturesque than valuable as a time-keeper.
There is an important difference between clocks and sun-dials, aside from
the self-evident one of the difference in their construction. Clock-time is
based on what is called "mean time." If we study the almanac table of times
of sunrises and sunsets, and count the number of hours from sunrise of one
day to sunrise of the next, we find it is rarely exactly twenty-four hours, but
usually a few minutes more or less, while the average for the whole year is
twenty-four hours. The clock is constructed to keep uniform time based on
this average length of day.
The sun-dial time marks "apparent time," the actual varying length of each
day. The sun-dial time, therefore, is nearly always some minutes ahead or
behind that of a clock, the greatest discrepancy being about sixteen minutes
for a few days in November. There are, however, four days in the year when
the clock and the sun-dial agree perfectly in the time they indicate. These
days are April 15th, June 15th, September 1st, and December 24th.
When in the eighteenth century clocks and watches began to come into
wide-spread use sun-dials fell into neglect, except as an appropriate bit of
ornament in gardens. At Castletown, in the Isle of Man, is a remarkable
sun-dial with thirteen faces, dating from 1720.
It was usual to place on sun-dials appropriate mottoes expressing a
sentiment exciting inspiration or giving a warning to better living. A dial
that used to be at Paul's Cross, London, bore an inscription in Latin, which
translated means, "I count none but the sunny hours." In an old sweet-
scented garden in Sussex was a sun-dial with a plate bearing four mottoes,
each for its own season: "After darkness, light;" "Alas, how swift;" "I wait
whilst I move;" "So passes life." Sometimes short familiar proverbs were
used like: "All things do wax and wane;" "The longest day must end;"
"Make hay while the sun shines."
It is told of Lord Bacon, that, without intending to do so, he furnished the
motto borne by a dial that stood in the old Temple Gardens in London. A
young student was sent to him for a suggestion for the motto of the dial,
then being built. His lordship was busy at work in his rooms when the
messenger humbly and respectfully made his request. There was no answer.
A second request met with equally oppressive silence and seeming

ignorance of even the existence of the speaker. At last, when the petitioner
ventured a third attack on the attention of the venerable chancellor, Bacon
looked up and said sharply: "Sirrah, be gone about your business." "A
thousand thanks, my lord," was the unexpected reply, "The very thing for
the dial! Nothing could be better."
We see that the principle of the sun-dial has been recognized and utilized
for many centuries; indeed, we still find sun-dials placed in gardens and
parks although we rarely take the trouble to look to them for the time. Like
the dinosaur and the saber-toothed tiger, they have had their day. They have
been forced to give way to devices that overcame some of their objections;
therefore we must not linger too long upon what is, after all, a closed
chapter in the history of time-recording.

CHAPTER FOUR
Telling Time by the Water-Thief
we must take another backward step of thousands of years. In
N
ow
considering the subject of time-recording, it seems necessary to wear a
pair of mental seven-league boots, for we must often pass back and
forth over great periods at single strides. While men were still improving
the sun-dial, its disadvantages were already recognized and search was
being made for some other means of telling time.
Suppose, for example, that one had only a sun-dial about the house; how
would one be able to tell time after sunset or on a dark day? How would
one know the hour if he were surrounded by tall buildings or a thick growth
of trees? And it might be very necessary to tell time under any of these
conditions.
Then, again, merely as a question of accuracy, the sun-dial was not always
reliable. It would get badly out of the way if used by travelers, since
different markings were needed for different latitudes. While on shipboard
the motion of the waves would cause the shadow to swing around in the
most bewildering manner. Even under ideal conditions it was never
absolutely exact, because the apparent motion of our steady-gaited old sun
is not quite as dependable as most of us imagine.
Astronomers find that they must allow for what they call "equation of time"
in order to make their calculations come out true. The question need not be
discussed at this point, but it can be seen that, as humanity left its earliest
care-free days and began to get busy, and hurried and anxious over its
affairs, it came to feel that after all the sun-dial was not altogether sufficient
for its needs.
For this reason we are now taking a third big backward step, returning, this
time, not to the caveman but to ancient Babylon and Egypt, probably not
less than twenty-seven hundred years ago and possibly much longer. In this
way we meet the clepsydra.

The clepsydra was an interesting instrument, and it had an interesting name,
which meant the "thief of water" and came from two Greek words meaning
"thief" and "water"; you can trace this in our words "kleptomaniac" and
"hydrant." We shall now examine a timepiece that was much more nearly a
machine than was the simple shade-casting sun-dial.
The original idea was simple enough. At first, it was merely that of a vessel
of water, having a small hole in the bottom, so that the liquid dripped out
drop by drop. As the level within the jar was lowered, it showed the time
upon a scale. Thus, if the hole were so small and the vessel were so large
that it would require twenty-four hours for the water to drip away at an
absolutely steady rate, it may be seen that the side of the vessel might easily
have been marked with twenty-four divisions to indicate the hours. It may
also be seen that the water would drip as rapidly at night or in shadow as in
sunlight. And the clepsydra could be used indoors, which the sun-dial could
not, although it required attention in that it must be regularly refilled and
the orifice must always be kept completely open, because the slightest
stoppage would retard the rate of dripping and the "clock" would run slow.
The sun, which, with the other heavenly bodies, had therefore been the sole
reliance of the human race in its time-reckoning could now be ignored and
the would-be timekeeper called to his aid another mighty servant from the
forces of nature—that of gravitation.
The most interesting human fact, however, about the clepsydra is that it
involved an entirely different conception of the marking of time. Now it
was not so much a question of when as of how long. A good sun-dial set in a
proper position would always indicate three o'clock when it was three
o'clock, but the clepsydra might do no such thing. It would merely show
how many hours had elapsed since last it was filled, and the steady drip,
drip, drip of the escaping water could—and did—lower the surface quite as
evenly at one time of day as at another.
We have already seen that the first purpose in marking time was merely for
making appointments, but the clepsydra shows that, with its invention,
mankind had already made some progress toward a new point of view. One
important factor in this change was the very practical need of telling time at
night, in stormy weather, or indoors, where the sun-dial could not be used.

The clepsydra, on the other hand, worked equally well at any hour or place,
and in all sorts of weather.
Nevertheless, it, too, proved to have certain faults. After a time, people
noticed the interesting fact that water ran faster from a full vessel than from
one which was nearly empty; this was, of course, because of the greater
pressure. Since such a variation interfered with calculations, they hit upon
the idea of a double vessel; the larger one below containing a float which
rose as the vessel filled, thus marking the hours upon the scale, and the
smaller one above, the one from which the water dripped, being kept
constantly filled to the point of overflow.
This improved form of clepsydra opened a field of fascinating possibilities
in time-recording—it gave the chance to make use of a machine. There is,
perhaps, no more interesting point in studying human development than to
see the steady, inevitable way in which mankind from its cave-dwelling
days has tended toward machinery. Roughly, this progress may be
characterized as of three stages.
First. Primitive man—an upright-standing animal, naked, unarmed, weak as
compared with some creatures, slow as compared with others, clumsy as
compared with still others—a creature with many physical disadvantages,
but with the best brain in the animal kingdom.
Second. The tool-using man, who had begun to grasp weapons and to
fashion implements, thus supplementing his natural abilities by artificial
means.
Third. The machine-making man, who has fashioned to himself a
mechanical "body" of incredible powers—that is to say, he has learned to
intensify his own powers through artificial means which he has invented, as
when he made the telescope to give himself greater vision; he has made
inventions by means of which he can outrun the antelopes, outfly the birds,
outswim the fishes, outgaze the eagles, and overmatch the elephants in
sheer physical force—he can turn night into day, can send his voice across
the continent, can strike crushing blows at a distance of many miles and can
carry the movements of the stars in his pocket. Some phases of this third
stage were foreshadowed when man first applied wheels and pulleys to his
clepsydra.

Here, then, was water steadily raised or lowered by means of uniform
dropping; here was a float whose motion was controlled by that of the
water; here, in fact, was water-power with a means for applying it. Attach a
cord to the float, cause it to turn a wheel by use of the pulley-principle, and
the motion of the wheel would indicate the time. Still better, rig up a
turning-pointer, increase its speed through the use of toothed gear-wheels,
place it in front of a stationary disk divided to indicate the hours, and now
the apparatus looked not unlike a modern clock. Or attach a bell and let it
be caused to ring at a certain point in the motion—what was that but an
alarm-clock? Ctesibus of Alexandra was the one who is believed first to
have applied the toothed wheels to the clepsydra and this was about 140 B.
C.
Clepsydrae were expensive of course;
accurate mechanical work was never cheap
until modern times. Cunning craftsmen
spent their time upon costly decorations,
and these water-clocks became triumphs of
the jeweler's art, a gift for kings.
Therefore, like the sun-dial, they drifted
into Rome—that vast maelstrom of the
ancient world. Imagine a great walled city
of low flat-roofed buildings, with fronts
and porches of great columns, a town
mostly of stone and much of it of marble,
gleaming white under the bright Italian
sun, the streets thronged with men in
tunics and togas and here and there some
person of importance driving by, standing
erect in his chariot drawn by four horses
harnessed abreast. And statues
everywhere, in the streets and about the buildings and in cool courtyards
and gardens among green leaves. The ancients thought of sculpture as an
outdoor thing, and where we have one statue in the streets or public places
of our cities, they had a hundred. We treasure the remains of them as artistic
wonders in our museums, but they put them indoors and out as common
ornaments, and lived among them.

Presently we hear of the clepsydra being used
in Roman law courts by command of Pompey,
to limit the time of speakers. "This," says one
writer of the day, "was to prevent babblings,
that such as spoke ought to be brief in their
speeches." It is not difficult to picture some
pompous and tiresome togaed advocate,
rolling out sonorous Latin syllables as he cites
precedents and builds up arguments, while an
unseen dropping checks the time against him,
and to hear his indignant surprise—and the
chuckles of his auditors—when the relentless
water-clock cuts him short in the middle of
some period. Martial, the Latin poet, referring
to a tiresome speaker who repeatedly
moistened his throat from a glass of water
during the lengthy speech, suggested that it
would be an equal relief to him and to his
audience, if he were to drink from the
clepsydra. But Roman lawyers were not guileless, and sometimes, so we are
told, they tampered with the mechanical regulation or else introduced
muddy water, which would run out more slowly.
This suggests one of the difficulties of the clepsydra. Still more serious was
the fact that it would freeze on frosty nights. There were no Pearys among
the ancient Romans; polar exploration interested them not at all; but they
did spread their conquests into regions of colder weather—as when Julius
Caesar mentions using the clepsydra to regulate the length of the night-
watches in Britain. His keen mind noted by this means that the summer
nights in Britain were shorter than those at Rome, a fact now known to be
due to difference of latitude.

The Clepsydra, or Water Clock
The Clepsydra, one of the earliest time-telling
devices, was used in Roman law courts to limit
the time of speakers and "to prevent babbling."

As late as the ninth century, a clepsydra was regarded as a princely gift. It is
said, that the good caliph, Harun-al-Raschid, beloved by all readers of the
"Arabian Nights," sent one of great beauty to Charlemagne, the Emperor of
the West. Its case was elaborate, and, at the stroke of each hour, small doors
opened to give passage to cavaliers. After the twelfth hour these cavaliers

retired into the case. The striking apparatus consisted of small balls which
dropped into a resounding basin underneath.
The clepsydra appears to have been used throughout the Middle Ages in
some European countries, and it lingered along in Italy and France down to
the close of the fifteenth century. Some of these water-clocks were plain tin
tubes; some were hollow cups, each with a tiny hole at the bottom, which
were placed in water and gradually filled and sank in a definite space of
time.
When the clepsydra was introduced from Egypt into Greece, and later into
Rome, one was considered enough for each town and was set in the market-
place or some public square. It was carefully guarded by a civic officer,
who religiously filled it at stated times. The nobility of the town and the
wealthy people sent their servants to find out the exact time, while the
poorer inhabitants were informed occasionally by the sound of the horn
which was blown by the attendant of the clepsydra to denote the hour of
changing the guard. This was much in the spirit of the calls of the
watchmen in old England, and later in our New England, who were, in a
way, walking clocks that shouted "Eleven o'clock and all's well," or
whatever might be the hour.
Allowing for the fact that the clepsydra was none too accurate at the best
and that its reservoir must occasionally be refilled, it can be seen that this
early form of timepiece, having played its part, was ready to step off the
stage when a more practical successor should arrive.
With one of its earliest successors we are familiar.

CHAPTER FIVE
How Father Time Got His Hour-Glass
very now and then one sees a picture of a lean old gentleman, with a

E long white beard, flowing robes, and an expression of most misleading
benignity. In spite of his look of kindly good humor, he is none too
popular with the human race and his methods are not always of the gentlest.
In one hand he carries the familiar scythe, and, in the other, the even more
familiar hour-glass. By this we may assume that he began to be pictured in
this way while the hour-glass was still in common use.
The principle of the hour-glass is so similar to that of the clepsydra, and its
first use was so early, that it is somewhat of a misnomer to speak of it as a
successor. About the only justification that can be made is that the clepsydra
has long disappeared, while the sand-glass—if not the hour-glass—is still
sold in the stores for such familiar uses as timing the boiling of eggs, the
length of telephone-conversations, and other short-time needs.
Nothing could be much simpler than the hour-glass, in which fine sand
poured through a tiny hole from an upper into a lower compartment. It had
none of the mechanical features of the later clepsydræ; it did not adjust
itself to astronomical laws like the perfected sun-dials; it merely permitted a
steady stream of fine sand to pass through an opening at a uniform rate of
speed, until one of the funnel-shaped bowls had emptied itself—then waited
with entire unconcern until some one stood it upon its head and caused the
sand to run back again.
However, it possessed some very solid advantages of its own. It would not
freeze; it would not spill over; it did not need refilling; it would run at a
steady rate whether the reservoir were full or nearly empty; it could be
made very cheaply, and there was nothing about it to wear out.
A water-clock might be of considerable size but a sand-clock, since it
required turning, must be kept small, and an hour-glass—a size small
enough to carry—became popular, although its use was correspondingly
limited. Thus, it naturally was assigned to Father Time to be carried before

watches were available. A sun-dial simply would not answer this purpose,
since the old gentleman works by night as steadily as by day.
How old is the sand-glass?
We do not know definitely, but it is said to have been invented at
Alexandria about the middle of the third century B. C. That it was known in
ancient Athens is certain, for a Greek bas-relief at the Mattei Palace in
Rome, representing a marriage, shows Morpheus, the god of dreams,
holding an hour-glass. The Athenians used to carry these timepieces as we
do our watches.
Some hour-glasses contained mercury, but sand was an ideal substance, for,
when fine and dry, it flows with an approximately constant speed whether
the quantity is great or small, whereas, liquids descend more swiftly the
greater the pressure above the opening.
Hour-glasses were introduced into churches in the early sixteenth century
when the preachers were famous for their wearisome sermons. The story is
told of one of these long-winded divines who, on a hot day, had reached his
"tenthly" just as the restless congregation were gladdened to see the last
grains of sand fall from the upper bowl. "Brethren," he remarked; "Let us
take another glass," and he reversed it—"Ahem, as I was saying—" And he
went on for another hour.
Other preachers, more merciful, used a half-hour glass and kept within its
limits. Many churches were furnished with ornamental stands to hold the
glass. These timekeepers lingered along in country churches for many
years, but ceased to be in anything like general demand after about 1650.
For rough purposes of keeping time on board ship, sand-glasses were
employed and it is curious to note that hour and half-hour glasses were used
for this purpose in the British navy as recently as the year 1839.
The very baby of the hour-glass family was a twenty-eight second affair
which assisted in determining the speed of the vessel. The log-line was
divided by knots, at intervals of forty-seven feet, three inches, and this
distance would go into a nautical mile as many times as twenty-eight
seconds would go into an hour. When the line was thrown overboard the
mariner counted the number of knots slipping through his fingers while his

eyes were fixed on the tiny emptying sand-glass, and in this way so many
"knots" an hour denoted the ship's speed in miles.
In the British House of Commons, even at the present time, a two-minute
glass is used in the preliminary to a "division," which is a method of voting
wherein the members leave their seats and go into either the affirmative or
negative lobbies. While the sand is running, "division-bells" are set in
motion in every part of the building to give members notice that a
"division" is at hand.
It was an ancient custom to put an hour-glass, as an emblem that the sands
of life had run out, into coffins at burials.
Another early means of recording time applied the principle of the
consumption of some slow-burning fuel by fire. From remote ages, the
Chinese and Japanese thus used ropes, knotted at regular intervals, or
cylinders of glue and sawdust marked in rings, which slowly smoldered
away. Alfred the Great, that noble English king of the ninth century, is said
to have invented the candle-clock, because of a vow to give eight hours of
the day to acts of religion, eight hours to public affairs, and eight hours to
rest and recreation. He had six tapers made, each twelve inches long and
divided into twelve parts, or inches, colored alternately black and white.
Three of these parts were burned in one hour, making each inch represent
twenty minutes, so that his six candles, lighted one after the other by his
chaplains, would burn for twenty-four hours.
The Eskimos also, through the long arctic night have watched the lamp
which gives both light and heat to their cold huts of snow. But all these are
no more than crude conveniences, whose irregularity is evident, and there is
likewise no need to do more than call attention to the effect upon fire in any
form, of wind or dampness in the air. The Roman lamp-clock sheltered from
the weather was the best of them all, and was the only one which long
continued in civilized use.
Our chief interest in all such devices comes from the touch of poetry still
remaining in the tradition of the sacred flame which must be kept forever
burning, and in association of life and time with fire, in such parables as
that of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. There is a reminder of this old time-
keeping by fire in all that poetry and philosophy which tells of hope that

still may live or of deeds that maybe done, "while the lamp holds out to
burn."
Thus far, in spite of occasional glimpses of the Middle Ages and of modern
times, we have dealt, for the most part, with earlier ages. Now our story
must leave these behind, and thus passes the ancient world with its strange
pagan civilization which was so human, so wise and so simple. It is difficult
for modern Americans even to imagine existence in ancient Greece or
Rome or in still more ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia—since the whole
attitude toward life was so essentially different from what it is to-day.
Our debt to the ancients in this one matter of recording time is typical of
that in many others. To them we owe our whole fundamental system and
conception of it from the astronomy by which we measure our years and
our seasons and make our appeal to the final standard of the stars, down to
the arithmetic of our minutes and seconds and the very names of our
months and days.

Sun Dial Designed and Placed by Sir Isaac
Newton in Cranbury Park, Winchester,
England

Pulpit Two-Hour Glass
American, 1700-50 in the
Essex Institute, Salem,
Mass.

Silver Gilt French Hour
Glass Eighteenth Century
in the Metropolitan
Museum

Types of the Earliest Time Telling
Devices
The sun dial is the first ancestor of all time
tellers, and the sand glass was probably the
first portable time telling device.
In the modern application and practical use of all this, on the other hand, we
owe them nothing. They never made a clock or watch, or any like device
which has more than a merely ornamental use to-day. They gave us the
general plan so well that we have never bettered it, but they left later
generations to work out the details. They invented the second as a division
of time but they did not measure by it. They did not care to try. For them,
learning was the natural right and power of the few, and the gulf between

the most that was known by the few and the little that was known in
general, was like the gulf between great wealth and great poverty among
ourselves.
Indeed, in this age of teaching and preaching, when a thought seems to need
only to be born in order to be spread abroad over the world, it is hard for us
even to conceive the instinct by which men kept their learning like a secret
among the initiated and felt no impulse to make known that which they
knew.
Their great men thought and did wonderful things which are now the
common property of us all. And their common folk lived in a fashion
astonishingly primitive by comparison, in an ignorance which certainly was
weakness and may somehow have been bliss.
That world of theirs is gone—the body and the spirit of it alike. And there
remains to us, along with much of their art and their science, the hour-glass
to symbolize that relentless flight of time which they feared but never tried
to save; and the quaint sun-dial in our gardens, a memory of that worldly-
wise old philosophy which counted only the shining hours.

CHAPTER SIX
The Clocks Which Named Themselves
the scene changes again, and the story shifts forward over the
N
ow
interval of a thousand years. As we take up the tale once more, we find
ourselves in another world, amid a life as different from that ancient
life of which we have been speaking as either of them is from our own life
to-day.
The ancient civilization, which may be traced from Rome through Greece,
Babylon and Egypt back to the dim dawn of history, is gone almost as if it
had never been. For there came a period when great hordes of barbarians
defeated the armies, burnt the cities, pillaged and destroyed, leaving only
desolation and ruin behind them. Then followed hundreds of years of what
we call the "Dark Ages,"—ages of ignorance and violence, when mankind
was slowly struggling upwards again and was forming a new civilization
upon the ruins of the old. Therefore, at the point we have now reached,
there are no more white temples and pillared porticos and sandaled men in
white tunic and toga, and marble statues in green gardens; but everywhere
we find sharp roofs and towers, quaint outlines, and wild color like a child's
picture-book.
There are castles with their moats and battlements, and monasteries with
their cloistered arches; there are knights in armor riding, and lords and
ladies gorgeous in strange garments, and monks in their dull gowns, and the
sturdy peasant working in the field; and in the towns, all among peaked
gables and Gothic windows and rough cobbled streets, a motley crowd of
beggar and burgher and courtier, priest and clerk, doctor and scholar and
soldier and merchant and tradesman—an endless variety of types, and each
in the distinctive costume of his calling. And there are churches
everywhere, from the huge cathedral towering like a forest of carven stone
to the humble village chapel or wayside shrine, their spires all pointing up
to heaven in token of the change that has come upon the life and spirit of
the world.

We have come from the height of the classic period suddenly into the heart
of the Middle Ages; and in the dark centuries that lie between, Christ and
His Disciples have come and gone, and the religion of the Western World
has changed; the old gods have perished and the saints have filled their
places. And Rome has died, and Romance has been born.
The center of civilization has shifted to the north and west; from the old
ring of lands around the Mediterranean to the great nations of modern
Europe. Italy has become a jealous group of independent cities, great in art
and commerce, but in little else. Germany is much the same, except for the
lack of some few score centuries of tradition. France and Spain are already
great and growing. William the Conqueror has fought and ruled and died,
and the "Merry England" of song and story has grown up out of the fusion
of Saxon and Norman. Chivalry and the Crusades, the times of Ivanhoe and
The Talisman, are as fresh as yesterday.
And by green hedgerows and hospitable inns, Chaucer's Pilgrims are
plodding onward toward the sound of Canterbury's bells. For here is the
point of all our seeking—that there are clocks now in the monasteries and in
the Cathedral towers. There is just one curious link of likeness between the
Middle Ages and the remoter past; as it was at first at Babylon, so now in
the fourteenth century the priesthood holds almost a monopoly of science
and of learning.
Thus, although the sun-dial, clepsydra and sand-glass are still much used,
we find ourselves at last in the time and lands of clocks. The very sound of
the word "clock" gives a clue to its origin. It suggests the striking of the
hour upon some bell. The French called the word cloche and the Saxons
clugga, and both of these originally meant a bell.
If you will put yourself back in the picture at the beginning of the chapter,
you will find yourself in a realm of sounding, pealing, chiming bells with
the hours of prayer throughout the day, from matins to angelus, rung out
from the belfries, and with frequent deep-toned strikings of the hour. Not
even a blind man could have remained unconscious of the passage of the
hours under such conditions, and time, in a sense, became more a
possession of democracy although timepieces themselves were still the
mark of special privilege.

Life also was beginning to hurry just a little. Very deliberate, we should call
it in comparison with the mad rush of the twentieth century, and yet it began
to show its growing complexity in that humanity was becoming more
definitely organized and men were forced to depend more and more upon
each other. In all of this, there was a slightly growing sense of the things
that were to be, just as the water for some miles above Niagara begins to
hasten its course under the influence of the mighty cataract over which it
will at last go madly plunging.
Herein occurs another of those baffling questions, like the old-time puzzler
as to whether the hen first came from the egg or the egg from the hen. One
cannot help wondering to what extent the increasing accuracy of the
broadening knowledge of time-keeping was the result of our complicated
modern life and to what extent it was the cause. Certainly we cannot
conceive of present-day affairs as being conducted save in the light of
moving hands and figures upon a dial.
From the Middle Ages, then, we get our word for clock and, which is more
important, we begin to get some crude application of its modern mechanical
principles. They were wonderfully skilful, those medieval workmen,
considering the means at their disposal, and the ingenuity of some of their
clocks is still a delight, but, perhaps, for better understanding of the story,
we should stop for a minute to inquire exactly what a clock means from the
mechanical point of view.
A clock is a machine for keeping time. And for this there are four essentials,
without any one of which there would be no clock. First, there must be a
motive power to make it run; second, there must be a means of transmitting
this power; third, there must be a regulating device to make the mechanism
move steadily and slowly, and keep the motive power from running down
too quickly; and, fourth, there must be some device to mark the time and
make it known.
In a typical modern clock the power comes from the pull of a weight or the
pressure of a spring—although clocks may, of course, be operated by
electricity or compressed air or some other means; also, the regulator is
what is known as the "escapement" and the recording device consists of the
hands, the dial, and the striking mechanism. Having stated this, let us return

to the past and see if we can determine how these principles came to be
applied.
This is not altogether easy. Our forefathers were less particular than we over
such trifling questions as names and spelling—even the learned
Shakespeare, long afterward, used several different spellings of his own
name. Thus, when we see in the records of the period the name of "clock"
or "horologe" we cannot tell with certainty what type is meant, since
"horologe" meant simply a device for keeping time; it might have been
applied equally well to a clock, clepsydra, an hour-glass, or even a sun-dial.
"It is quite possible," writes M. Gubelin Breitschmidt, the younger, an
eminent horologist of Lucerne, Switzerland, "that a large number of the
technical inventions of antiquity were lost during the migrations of the
barbarians and under the chaotic conditions prevailing during the first
thousand years of Christianity, but the most perfect surviving instrument for
measuring time was the water-clock, known as the clepsydra, which was
able to maintain its supremacy long after the appearance of the wholly
mechanical clock, just as the beautiful manuscripts of the artist monks and
laymen were favored by the cultured classes long after the invention of
movable types for printing.
"The spread of Christianity throughout Europe caused the foundation of
many religious communities, and the severe rules by which they were
governed—fixing the hours of prayer, labor, and refreshment—forced their
members to seek instruments by which to measure time. In the year 605, a
bull of Pope Sabinianus decreed that all bells be rung seven times in the
twenty-four hours, at fixed moments and regularly, and these fixed times
became known as the seven canonical hours. The sound of the bells
penetrated and came to regulate not only the life of the religious bodies but
also that of the secular people who lived outside the walls of the
monasteries. Oil-lamps, candles, hour-glasses, prayers and—for those who
had the means of buying them—clepsydræ served as chronometers for the
brotherhoods; so that one can easily imagine that many a monk sought to
improve these instruments. But as yet, no one had found means to regulate
the wheel-system of a movement. In the best instruments of this period,
water supplied the motive power and served as well to regulate the action."

There is a general belief that Gerbert, the monk, who was the most
accomplished scholar of his age, and who later became Pope Sylvester II,
was the one who first took the important step of producing a real clock, and
that this occurred near the close of the tenth century—or to be more exact,
about 990 A. D. This period was one of densest superstition, and
expectancy of the end of the world was in the air, since many people had
fixed upon the year 1000 A. D. as the date of that cataclysmic event.
Authorities of the Church and of the state were not very partial to invention
and research, their attention being fixed largely upon theological, political,
or military affairs; but, of course, inquiring and constructive minds were
still to be found; even without encouragement these tended to follow the
impulse of their natures.

Galileo Discovering the Principle of the
Pendulum
As a youth of seventeen Galileo watched a
swinging lamp, in the Cathedral of Pisa, timed
it by his pulse, and discovered the principle
upon which pendulum clocks are built.

It is to the monks in their cloisters that we chiefly owe the preservation of
learning through the "dark ages," and from the monks, for the most part,
came such progress of science and invention as was made. If Gerbert, the

monk, after patient tinkering with wheels and weights in his stone-walled
workshop, really achieved some form of the clock-action as we know it, he
was one of the great benefactors of the human race. Still, it is not
impossible that his device may only have been a more remarkable
application of the clepsydra principle.
Whatever it was, it seems to have startled the authorities, for they are said
to have accused him of having practiced sorcery through league with the
devil, and to have banished him for a time from France. His age appears to
have had a vast respect for the intellectual powers of his Satanic Majesty.
Anything which was too ingenious or scientific to be understood without an
uncomfortable degree of mental application was very apt to be ascribed to
diabolic inspiration and thus found unfit for use in "Christian" lands. It
could hardly have been a stimulating atmosphere for would-be inventors.
All of the credit that we are ascribing to Gerbert must therefore be prefixed
with an "if." Did he really invent the clock-movements, or is this merely
another of the tales which have blown down to us from this age of tradition
and romance? For similar tales are told of Pacificus in 849 A. D. of the
early Pope Sabinianus in 612 and even of Boetheus, the philosopher, as far
back as 510 A. D., while always in the background are claims of priority for
the Chinese who are supposed to have discovered many of our most
important mechanical and scientific principles away off upon the other side
of the world before these were dreamed of in the west.
If all of these various claims were true, which is far from likely, it still
would not need to surprise us, for it must be remembered that humanity,
until within the past few generations, was more or less a collection of
separated units and its records were very incomplete. There was scant
interest in abstract research and very limited intercourse between towns and
countries; one who made an important discovery in one locality might be
unheard of a hundred miles away. Unless all the conditions were favorable,
his ideas might even pass from memory with his death, until some scholar
of modern times might chance upon their record.
All that can with certainty be said, therefore, is that there were clocks of
some sort in the monasteries during the eleventh century; that back of these
were the clepsydræ and other time recording devices; and that here and

there through the preceding centuries are more or less believable tales of
inventions that had to do with the subject.
Let it be remembered, too, that some of the brilliant minds of ancient times
made discoveries that were forgotten after the barbarian waves
overwhelmed preceding civilizations. The ages following the downfall of
Rome were those of intellectual darkness, illiteracy, and rude force until
mankind groped slowly back toward the light through the process of
rediscovery.
Thus, it mattered not at all to the medieval world that Archimedes, the great
Greek scientist and engineer—who, however, chanced to live in the Greek
colony of Sicily—was able, somewhere about 200 B. C., to construct a
system of revolving spheres which reproduced the motion of the heavenly
bodies. Such a machine must necessarily have involved some sort of clock-
work. We dare not stop to consider Archimedes, lest we stray too far from
our subject, but this marvelous man of ancient times, the Benjamin Franklin
of his day, seems to have had a hand in almost every sort of mechanical and
scientific research, from discovering the principle of specific gravity, in
order to checkmate a dishonest goldsmith, to destroying Roman war-ships
by means of his scientific "engines." The story is told that he set the ships
on fire by concentrating upon them the rays of the sun from a number of
concave mirrors. And, although this story may not be true, the things that he
is known to have done are extraordinary.
Archimedes and his knowledge had long passed away when the monastery
clocks of the eleventh century began to sound the hour. These were the fruit
of a crude new civilization just struggling for expression, and represented
the general period when William the Conqueror led his Norman army into
England.

CHAPTER SEVEN
The Modern Clock and Its Creators
e learn that toward the close of the thirteenth century a clock was set

W up in St. Paul's Cathedral in London (1286); one in Westminster, by
1288; and one in Canterbury Cathedral, by 1292. The Westminster
clock and the chime of bells were put up from funds raised by a fine
imposed on a chief justice who had offended the government. The clock
bore as an inscription the words of Virgil: "Discite justitiam moniti," "Learn
justice from my advice," and the bells were gambled away by Henry VIII!
In the same century, Dante, whose wonderful poem the Commedia, (the
Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise) is sometimes called the "Swan Song of
the Middle Ages," since it marks the passing of the medieval times, spoke
of "wheels that wound their circle in an orloge."
Chaucer speaks of a cock crowing as regularly "as a clock in an abbey
orloge." And this shows, curiously, the early meaning of the word, for by
the word "clock," Chaucer evidently meant the bell which struck the hour,
and, very obviously, he used the word "orloge" to indicate the clock itself.
Many of these "clocks" had neither dials nor hands. They told time only by
striking the hour. Sometimes in the great tower clocks there were placed
automatic figures representing men in armor or even mere grotesque figures
which, at the right moment, beat upon the bell. These figures were called
"jacks o' the clock" or "jacquemarts" and curious specimens of them are still
in existence.
The early abbey clocks did not even strike the hour but rang an alarm to
awaken the monks for prayers. Here again, the alarm principle precedes the
visible measurement of time; even now, as already noted, we speak of a
"clock" by the old word for "bell."
In the course of the following century—the fourteenth—clocks began to
appear which were really worthy of the name, and of these we have
authentic details. They were to be found in many lands. One of them was
built, in 1344, by Giacomo Dondi at Padua, Italy. Another was constructed

in England, in 1340, by Peter Lightfoot, a monk of Glastonbury. And in
1364, Henry de Wieck, De Wyck, or de Vick, of Wurtemburg, was sent for
by Charles V, King of France, to come to Paris and build a clock for the
tower of the royal palace, which is now the Palais de Justice. It was finished
and set up in February 1379, and there it still remains after lapse of five and
a half centuries, although its present architectural surroundings were not
finished until a much later date.
This venerable timepiece termed by some chroniclers "the parent of modern
timekeepers," was still performing its duty as late as 1850. And so it is a
matter of interesting record that its mechanism, which served to measure
the passage of time in the days when the earth was generally believed to be
flat and when the Eastern Division of the Roman Empire was still ruled
from Byzantium, now Constantinople, has served the same purpose within
the possible memory of men now living. Its bell has one grim association—
it gave the signal for that frightful piece of Medicean treachery, the
Massacre of St. Bartholomew, planned by Catherine de Medici, the mother
of the King Charles IX, when the armed retainers of the crown of France
flung themselves upon the unsuspecting Huguenots and caused the streets
to run red with the blood of men, women and children—a ghastly butchery
of thousands of people.
As we have seen, de Vick's clock was neither the earliest made, nor among
the earliest; nor, probably, did it embody any at that time new mechanical
invention. It does, however, fairly and clearly typify the oldest style of
clock of which we to-day have any accurate knowledge. Compare its
description, then, with the clock upon your shelf.
We think of the tall-cased "grandfather's clocks" as antique; but this tower-
clock of de Vick's outdoes them in antiquity by some four hundred years.
And its most interesting feature is its curious likeness in mechanical
principle to the clocks of modern times. Like most early clocks, it has only
one hand—the hour-hand. Its ponderous movement is of iron, laboriously
hand-wrought; the teeth of its wheels and pinions were cut out one by one.
It was driven by a weight of five hundred pounds, the cord of which was
wound round a drum, or barrel. This barrel carried, at one end, a pinion,
meshing with the hour-wheel, which drove the hands; the flange at the other
end of the barrel formed the great wheel, or first wheel of the train. This
meshed with a pinion on the shaft of the second wheel, and this in turn with

a lantern-pinion upon the shaft of the escape-wheel. All of this is, of course,
essentially the modern train of gears, only with fewer wheels.
The escapement is the most important part of the whole mechanism,
because it is the part which makes the clock keep time. It is an interrupter,
checking the movement almost as soon as, under the urge of the
mainspring, it starts forward. The frequency and duration of these
interruptions determines the rate of running. Without this, the movement
would run down swiftly; with it, the operation stretches over thirty hours,
involving 432,000 interruptions.

A Time Piece of the Middle Ages
The huge and elaborate Clock of Strasbourg
Cathedral, in Lorraine, was built in 1352 and is
an example of the first clocks.

De Vick's escapement is shown in the illustration. The escape-wheel was
bent into the shape of a shallow pan, so that its toothed edge was at a right
angle to the flat part of the wheel. Near it was placed a verge, or rotating
shaft, so called from a Latin word meaning "turning around." On this verge
were fastened two flat projections called pallets, diverging from each other
at about an angle of one hundred degrees. The width between the pallets,
from center to center of each, was equal to the diameter of the wheel, so
that one would mesh with the teeth at the top of the escape-wheel and the
other with the teeth at the bottom.

de Vick's Clock

Now, if the upper pallet were between the teeth at the top of the wheel, the
pressure of the wheel trying to turn would push it away until the teeth were

set free. But, in so doing, it would cause the verge to turn and bring the
lower pallet between the teeth at the bottom of the wheel. And since the
bottom of the wheel was, of course, traveling in the opposite direction from
the top, the action would be reversed, and the lower pallet would be pushed
away, bringing the upper one back between the teeth of the wheel again;
and so on, "tick-tock," the wheel moving a little way each time, and the
pallets alternately catching and holding it from going too far.
The device was kept running slowly by means of a cross-bar called a
"foliot," fastened across the top of the verge in the shape of a T, and having
weights on its two ends. When this weighted bar was set turning in one
direction, it would, of course, resist being suddenly stopped and started
turning the other way, as it was constantly made to do. And this furnished
the regulating action which retarded the motion of the works and kept them
from running down.
This involves the principle of the modern balance-wheel in both watches
and clocks, which is that of inertia; the rim of the balance-wheel represents
the weights on the bar that resist the pull of the pallets. A vital
improvement, however, is the interception of the hair spring which gives
elasticity to the pull and thus supplies the elements of precision and
refinement. The inertia of the balance-wheel is gauged by the weight of the
rim and its distance from the center; and the last refinement of regulation of
the mechanism is produced by moving the tiny screws on the periphery of
this wheel outward or inward.
We shall see later how this old escapement was in principle much like the
improved forms in use to-day. It was as quaint and clumsy an affair as the
first automobile or the first steam-engine. But, like them, it was a great
invention, destined to achieve great results. For it was the means of making
a machine keep time. And every clock and watch in use to-day depends for
its usefulness upon a similar device. The tick is the first thing we think of in
connection with a clock; and it is the most essential thing also, because it is
the escapement which does the ticking.
This old clock of de Vick's also struck the hours upon a bell and in very
much the same way as modern clocks are made to do. But the mechanical
means by which it did so are too complicated to be easily described here.

And indeed it is unnecessary to do so, since the bell is far less important. A
clock need not strike, but it must keep time.
On the fearsome eve of St. Bartholomew, therefore, and again within the
past generation, the clanging of this old clock's bell was brought about by
the whirling gears and ponderous weights of an early craftsman who
wrought his work into the ages.
As already stated, de Vick's mechanism embodied mechanical principles
which, although greatly developed and improved, are employed even at the
present day. All the essentials of a clock are there; the motive power—the
descent of a massive weight—is now replaced by a slender spring; the train
of gears by which this motion is reduced and communicated, are cut to-day
with the extreme accuracy of modern machine work; the hand moving
around the dial is now accompanied by a longer, swifter hand to tell the
minutes; the escapement which by checking the motive power while yet
allowing it to move on step by step, retards and regulates—even the
numbered striking of the unchanging hours.
De Vick's old clock may have been a crude machine—it certainly was a
poor timekeeper—but it was the sturdy ancestor of all those myriad tribes
of clocks and watches which warn us solemnly from our towers, chime to
us from our mantels, or, nestling snugly in our pockets, or clinging to our
wrists, help us to maintain our efficiency in the complexities of modern life.
The mechanism employed by de Vick was retained without any
improvement of importance in all the time-pieces of the next three hundred
years. The foliot escapement, especially, remained in use much longer.
Indeed, any modern watchmaker would recognize that it was practically a
horizontal balance-wheel.
Long before it was improved upon, watches had been invented and clocks
had everywhere become common. But we shall reserve the watch for the
next chapter; for the moment, our concern is with clocks alone.
The disadvantage of the medieval clock was its inaccuracy. This was due
first to crude workmanship and unnecessary friction; but that trouble was
presently overcome, for the medieval mechanic could be as fine and
accurate a workman as any modern. He had the artist's personal pride and
pleasure in his skill, and also a great unhurried patience, somewhat hard for
us to picture in this breathless age. At best, however, his work fell far short

of the accuracy possible with modern machinery. Other important
difficulties were found in the expansion and contraction of parts due to
temperature variations, and the fact that the foliot balance was at its best
only when running slowly. Altogether, then, these early clocks were easily
surpassed in accuracy of timekeeping by a sun-dial or a good clepsydra.
The question arises, therefore, why this newcomer in the field of
timekeeping, should have begun to displace the earlier devices. The clock
was not yet a better timepiece than the sun-dial; why did it grow more
common? Well, for one thing, people like novelties. For another, people
loved their churches and lived by the chimes of distant bells; and the clock
was by far the most practical striking device, whatever might be its faults in
keeping time. But, what was most important of all, it was a machine,
susceptible of infinite improvement and offering a field for endless
ingenuity. It appealed to that inborn mechanical instinct by means of which
mankind has wrought his mastery over the world.
We have seen how de Vick's clock contained, as it were, the germ of all our
clocks. And, moreover, the medieval regarded machinery with profoundest
awe. It is the unknown which awakes imagination. We wonder at the
cathedrals of his day, but the medieval knew about cathedrals; he built
them. Considering their comparatively cruder tools, lack of modern hoisting
machinery, and so forth, their architectural and building abilities exceeded
even those of to-day. On the other hand, a locomotive or a modern watch,
such as we glance at without special notice, would have appeared to him the
product of sheer sorcery, too wonderful to be the work of human hands.
The Middle Ages could not much improve their clock without some radical
invention; and such a mechanical type of invention was yet the province of
but few minds. The typical craftsman could merely make the clock more
convenient, more decorative, and more wonderful. To this work, he and his
fellows addressed themselves with all of their patient skill and their endless
ingenuity for ornamentation.
They made clocks for their churches and public buildings, and elaborated
them with intricate mechanical devices. The old "Jacks" that struck the bells
were only a beginning. They made clocks for their kings and wealthy
nobles, adorning them with all the richness that an artist could design and a
skilful jeweler execute. They made clocks even for ordinary domestic use

so quaint in design and so clever in workmanship that we exhibit them to-
day in our museums. One difficulty in determining the date of the first
invention is that long before the days of de Vick and Lightfoot, machines
were made to show the day of the week and month and to imitate the
movements of the stars; and the first horological records may refer to clock-
works of this kind.
The famous clock of Strassburg Cathedral shows the extreme to which the
medieval craftsman carried this kind of ingenuity. It was originally put up in
1352 and has been twice rebuilt, each time with greater elaboration. It is
three stories high and stands against the wall somewhat in the shape of a
great altar with three towers. Among its movements are a celestial globe
showing the positions of the sun, moon, and stars, a perpetual calendar, a
device for predicting eclipses and a procession of figures representing the
pagan gods from whom the days of the week are named. There are devices
for showing the age and phases of the moon and other astronomical events.
The hours are struck by a succession of automatic figures, and at the stroke
of noon a cock, perched upon one of the towers, flaps his wings, ruffles his
neck, and crows three times. This clock still remains, having last been
rebuilt in the four years 1838 to 1842. But its chief interest is that of a
mechanical curiosity. It keeps no better time than a common alarm-clock,
nor ever did. And in beauty as well as usefulness, it has been surpassed
many times by later and simpler structures.
For the first really important improvement in clock making we must pass to
the latter end of the sixteenth century. The Italian Renaissance with its great
impulse to art and science has come and gone, and the march of events has
brought us well into the modern world. America had been discovered a
century and is beginning to be colonized. Spain is trying to found a world
empire upon blood and gold and the tortures of the Inquisition. England is
at the height of the great Elizabethan period. It is the time of Drake and
Shakespeare and Sir Walter Raleigh.
At this period of intellectual awakening, a remarkable young man steps
upon the scene. In 1564, the year in which the wonderful Englishman,
Shakespeare, first saw the light of day, the scarcely less wonderful Italian,
Galileo, was born in Pisa. He was gifted with keen eyes and a swift, logical
mind, which left its impress upon so many subjects of human thought and

speculation that we are tempted to stop as with Archimedes and trace his
history. But, one single incident must suffice.

Ivory and Silver Folding Dial German,
Seventeenth Century

Ring Dial in general use during Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Century

Ivory Compass Dial Italy, 1628

Universal Cube Dial German, Eighteenth
Century

Ancestors of the Watch
Portable and pocket sun dials in the
collections of the Metropolitan Museum.
In 1581, this youth of seventeen stood in the cathedral of Pisa. Close at
hand, a lamp suspended by a long chain swung lazily in the air currents.
There was nothing unusual in such a sight. Millions of other eyes had seen
other suspended objects going through exactly this motion and had not
given the sight a second thought. At this moment, however, a great

discovery of far-reaching application—one which was to revolutionize
clock construction—hung waiting in the air. Young Galileo took notice.
The lamp swung to and fro, to and fro. Sometimes it moved but slightly.
Again, as a stronger breeze blew through the great drafty structure, it swung
in a considerable arc, but always—and this was the point which impressed
itself upon the Italian lad—the swing was accomplished in exactly the same
time. When it moved a short distance, it moved slowly; the farther it moved,
the faster became the motion; in its arc it moved more swiftly,
accomplishing the long swing in the same time as it did the short one. In
order to make sure of this fact, Galileo is said to have timed the swinging
lamp by counting the beating of his pulse.
Thus was discovered the principle of the pendulum and its "isochronism."
By "isochronism" we mean inequal arcs in equal time. In other words, any
swinging body, such as a pendulum, is said to be "isochronous" when it
describes long or short arcs in equal lengths of time. This also applies to a
balance-wheel, and hair-spring. And herein lies a remarkable fact—this
epoch-making discovery was after all but a rediscovery. The isochronism of
a swinging body was known in Babylon thousands of years before,
although the Babylonians, of course, could not explain it. Lacking in
application, it had passed from the minds of men, and it remained for
Galileo to observe the long-forgotten fact and to work out its mechanical
application. He did not himself apply this principle to clock-making,
although some fifty years later, toward the end of his life, he did suggest
such an application.
The first pendulum clocks were probably made about 1665, by Christian
Huyghens, the celebrated Dutch astronomer and mathematician who
discovered the rings of Saturn; and by the English inventor, Doctor Robert
Hooke. The invention is claimed for several other men in England and
abroad at about the same time; but hardly upon sufficient authority.
From that time on, the important improvements of clockwork were chiefly
made in two directions—those of the mechanical perfection of the
escapement and the compensation for changes of temperature.
There is a little world of invention and discovery behind the face of the
clock which beats so steadily on your mantel. Look within if you will, and
see the compact mechanism with its toothed gears, its coiled spring, or its

swinging pendulum, in which the motion of the cathedral lamp is harnessed
for your service,—nothing in that grouping has merely happened so. You
may or may not understand all the action of its parts, or the technical names
of them; but each feature in the structure has been the result of study and
experiment, as when Huyghens hung the pendulum from a separate point
and connected it with a forked crank astride the pendulum shaft. You can
see that forked crank to this day, if you care to look; it was the product of
good Dutch brains.
Next we come to one of the greatest single improvements in clock-work,
and the chief difference between the mechanism made by de Vick and the
better ones of our own time. When the pallets in a clock are forced by an
increased swing of the pendulum or by the form of the pallet faces against
the teeth of the escape-wheel in the direction opposite to that in which the
wheel is moving, the wheel must be pushed backward a little way each
time, and the whole clock action is made to back up a little. You can see that
this would tend to interfere with good and regular timekeeping. George
Graham, in London, in 1690 corrected this error by inventing the dead-beat
escapement which rather contradicted its name by working very well and
faithfully.
There are many forms of this escapement and there is no need to explain it
in detail. But the main idea is this: At the end of each vibration or swing of
the pendulum, the escape-teeth, instead of being made to recoil by the
downward motion of the pallets, simply remains stationary or at rest until
the commencement of the return swing of the pendulum. This was brought
about by applying certain curves to the acting faces of the pallets. But the
acting faces of both tooth and pallet are beveled, so that the tooth in
slipping by gives the pallet a "kick" or impulse outward and keeps it in
motion. Nowadays, even a common alarm-clock has an escapement
working in this way.
Then came another remarkably interesting contribution. Have you ever
wondered why the pendulums of fine clocks were weighted with a gridiron
of alternate rods of brass and steel? For purpose of ornament? Not at all—it
constitutes a scientific solution of an embarrasing problem, due to the
inevitable variations in temperature. Metals expand with heat and contract
with cold. Notched iron bars can be made to "crawl" along a flat surface by
alternately heating and cooling them. Bridge-builders sometimes arrange

sliding points, or rocking points to adjust the differences in the length of the
steel. Contraction and expansion are important factors in all their
calculations. But a pendulum would change its rate of motion if it changed
its length and this would interfere with its accuracy as a measurer of time.
Graham worked upon this problem, too, and attached a jar of mercury to the
rod of his pendulum for a weight. When the heat lengthened the rod, it also
caused the mercury to rise, just as in a thermometer, and this left the
"working-length" the same.
Such mercury-weighted pendulums are not uncommon to this day, but the
more familiar gridiron came from the brain of John Harrison, who, in 1726,
fixed the alternate rods in such a way that the expanding brass rods raised
the weight as much as the expanding steel rods lowered it. Thus they
neutralized each other.
The clock as we know it was now virtually complete. There were structural
refinements, but no more radical improvements to be made. In tracing its
development from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century, we note one
curious likeness to the ancient history of recorded time. In this case, as
before in Babylon, the people first concerned with the science were the
priests, and after them the astronomers, but we note a still more important
difference.
As the medieval passed into the modern, the practise of horology passed
more and more out of the hands of scientists into the keeping of commercial
workmen. The custodian of time was at first a priest, and finally a
manufacturer. And this change was attended by a vast increase in the
general use of timepieces, and the correspondingly greater influence of time
upon society and men's way of living. The Middle Ages made clocks and
watches; and clocks and watches make the age in which we live.

CHAPTER EIGHT
The Watch that Was Hatched from the "Nuremburg
Egg"
n the second act of Shakespeare's play, As You Like It, when Touchstone,

I the fool, meets Jaques, the sage, he draws forth a sun-dial from his pocket
and begins to moralize upon Time.
Touchstone's dial must have looked like a napkin-ring, with a stem like that
of a watch, by which to hold it up edgewise toward the sun, and a tiny hole
in the upper part of the ring through which a little sunbeam could fall upon
the inner surface whereon the hours were marked. This pinhole was perhaps
pierced through a slide, which could be adjusted up or down according to
the sun's position at the time of year. In principle, therefore, it was a
miniature of the huge dial of Ahaz of more than two thousand years before.
In another Shakespeare play, Twelfth Night, Malvolio is gloating in
imagination over his coming luxury when he shall have married the heiress
and entered upon a life of wealth and leisure.
"I frown the while," says he; "and perchance wind up my watch, or play
with my—some rich jewel."
There, in those two quotations, we have the whole meaning of the watch in
the time of Queen Elizabeth. Touchstone's dial was a practical convenience
—a thing to tell the time. Malvolio's watch was a piece of jewelry, an
ornament indicating wealth and splendor. While watches had been well
known for many years, people wore them chiefly for display and told time
by means of pocket sun-dials.
For the first watches we must go back to about the year 1500, shortly after
America had been discovered, and when the great tower-clocks of de Vick
and Lightfoot were not much more than a century old. In the quaint old
town of Nuremberg there lived, at that time, one Peter Henlein, probably a
locksmith. But a locksmith, in those days, would be an expert mechanic—
more like a modern toolmaker; very likely an armorer also; capable of that

fine workmanship in metal which we still wonder at in our museums.
Nuremberg was then very much a medieval city, all red-tiled roofs and
queer windows, where people went about dressed in trunks and jerkins and
pointed caps and pointed shoes. It looked like Die Meistersinger, and
Grimm's Fairy Tales, and pictures by Howard Pyle and Maxfield Parrish;
very much like "Spotless Town," except that it was far from spotless.
Now, as you remember, there was not until long after this any means of
making clocks keep anything like accurate time; so, instead of improving
them, people competed with each other in devising novel and ingenious
forms. There could be no more desirable novelty than a clock small enough
to stand upon a desk or table, or even to be carried around. Such a clock
could not well be driven by weights. But Peter Henlein overcame that
difficulty by using for the motive power a coiled mainspring wound up with
a ratchet, just as we still do to-day.
There is some dispute over attributing to Henlein the credit for this
invention; but at least he did the thing, and it cannot be proved that anybody
did it before him. "Every day," wrote Johannes Coeuleus, in 1511,
"produces more ingenious inventions. A clever and comparatively young
man—Peter Henlein—creates works that are the admiration of leading
mathematicians, for, out of a little iron he constructs clocks with numerous
wheels, which, without any impulse and in any position, indicate time for
forty hours and strike, and which can be carried in the purse as well as in
the pocket."

The First Pocket Time Piece
In Shakespear's play, "As You Like It,"
Touchstone, the Fool, draws forth a pocket sun
dial, which probably was of the "napkin ring"
type.

There was, however, no invention of any such thing as we mean by the term
watch to-day that came complete from the mind of any one man, but the
contrivance gradually grew, in shape and structure out of the small clock
which could be worn at the belt or on a chain round the neck. It came to be

called a watch because clock meant a bell that struck the hours. But many of
the first watches had striking apparatus, and this circumstance added to the
confusion of names. We slangily call a fat, old-fashioned watch a turnip;
but the first watches were very much fatter and more old-fashioned, and
might fairly have deserved the name. Before long, Henlein was making
them oval in shape. Hence, they were called Nuremberg eggs.
Here, then, is something which we can really consider a watch. Let us see
how it compares with those that we know to-day. In the first place, being
egg-shaped, it was thick and heavy—you would not like to carry it in your
pocket. It had no crystal and only one hand—the hour-hand. So much for
the outside.
Inside, the difference was still greater. The works were made of iron and put
together with pins and rivets. It was all hand-work—expert workmanship,
indeed—but look at the works of your own watch and try to imagine cutting
the teeth in those tiny gears, or making those delicate springs with files and
hammers. As pieces of hand-workmanship, therefore, the watches made by
Henlein and his followers were remarkable; but when compared with our
modern watches, they were crude and clumsy affairs.
Furthermore, they were poor timekeepers. They had the old foliot balance
running parallel to the dial. This was all very well as long as the watch lay
on the table with the balance swinging horizontally. But as soon as it was
carried, in a perpendicular position, the arms of the balance had to swing up
and down, which was quite another matter. And then, of course, the
crudeness of the works produced a great deal of friction. This made it
necessary to use a very stiff mainspring, otherwise the watch would not run
at all. Such a spring exercised more pressure when fully wound than when
it was nearly run down. And so the worst fault of the foliot was that it
speeded up under increased pressure.
The first improvements, and, in fact, the only ones for nearly two hundred
years, were directed toward doing away with the unequal pressure of the
mainspring and thus make the watch keep better time. If you look into the
back of a very early watch, you may see a curious device consisting of a
curved arm ending in a pinion, which travels round an eccentric gear of
peculiar shape. This is the first type of equalizing mechanism; it was
invented in Peter Henlein's time and was called the stackfreed; but it was a

clumsy device at best and a great waste of power. Therefore it was
gradually displaced by the fusee.
Perhaps one might have felt a certain amount of pride in carrying about
such a thick, bulging mechanical toy, as were these early watches, but, as to
possessing something that would keep correct time—that was a different
matter. After admiring it and listening to its ticking, one would have to
guess as to just how far wrong it might be. People did not figure closely on
minutes and half minutes in the day of the Nuremberg egg; there was no
"Wall Street" and no commuting. And this brings us to a real event in the
whole story.
Jacob Zech, a Swiss mechanic, living at Prague in Bohemia, Austria, about
1525, began studying the problem of the equalization of watch mechanism.
He was sure that there ought to be some better means than that of the
clumsy stackfreed. Presently he hit upon the principle of the fusee, and
Gruet, another Swiss, perfected it. At last it became possible to make a
watch that would not run fast when first wound and then go more and more
slowly as it ran down—and to do this in a really practical way. Before this
time, a watch was a clumsy piece of ticking jewelry; now it became
something of a real time-keeper. Therefore, it was not long before people
began to want Swiss watches. These were the days when skilful Swiss
craftsmen worked patiently in their little home shops, making some single
watch-part and making it extremely well, while the so-called
"manufacturer" bought up these separate parts, and assembled them into
watches.
What was the fusee that brought about such a change? Not much to look at,
surely—merely a short cone with a spiral groove running about it, and a
cord, or chain, wound in this groove and fastened at the large end of the
core. Its principle and its action were very simple, and that is why it was a
great invention. Some one has said that anyone can invent a complicated
machine to do a piece of work, but it takes real brains to make a simple
machine that will do the same work.

The shaft of the fusee was attached to the great wheel which drove the
gears, and the other end of the cord was fastened to the mainspring barrel.
This is the way in which it worked: The mainspring slowly turned the
barrel; this gradually unwound the cord from the fusee and caused the fusee
to turn. When the fusee turned, the wheels also were forced to turn, and the
watch was running. At the start, the cord would unwind from the small end
where the leverage was least, but as the tension of the mainspring grew
slowly less, the leverage of the cord grew slowly greater and, consequently,
the power applied to the wheels was always of the same degree of strength.
This invention gave a great impulse to Swiss watchmaking; several
centuries later it worked to the disadvantage of English manufacturers, for
they continued to use it after other countries had found still better methods
of power equalization.
The fusee was invented about the year 1525, at a time when the world was
fairly alive with new ideas. People in Europe were just beginning to realize
that they were living on a sphere and not upon a flat surface, and that there
was a vast new land on the other side of the ocean. Columbus had crossed
the Atlantic but a few years before and now explorers were making new
voyages of discovery in every direction.
Printing, invented by Gutenberg, about a century before, was becoming
common enough to be a real power in the world, bringing the thoughts of
men before the eyes of thousands without the slow and expensive process
of hand-copying. The first printed copy of the Bible had made its
appearance and Caxton had set up his first printing-press—all within the
lifetime of people then living—and printing shops were being established in
many places. Many people were learning to read—a thing that could be said
of very few in the Middle Ages. They were finding out something about the

wonderful forgotten civilization of ancient times. Everywhere people's
minds were stirring. We call it the time of the Renaissance, or the rebirth of
civilization, but in some respects it was more like the awakening of the
world after a long sleep. Just as a person on waking looks first at his clock
or watch, so now the world, preparing to be busy and modern, needed some
better means of telling time. It therefore was both natural and necessary that
the watch should have received such a great improvement as the fusee at
just this period.
Then began the age of those strange, ingenious watches which we still find
in the museums. For some time, there were only a few real improvements.
Screws and brass wheels were introduced into their construction about
1550, and glass crystals about 1600. The minute-hand appeared
occasionally; but it was not in common use for nearly a century afterward.
And that shows how watches were regarded in those days. One would think
that such an obvious advantage as that of minute-notation would have been
seized upon and utilized at once; on the contrary, people did not seem to
care much about it. What was the use of a hand to mark the minutes, when
the watch was more likely than not to be half an hour or so in error?
For real timekeeping there were dials everywhere, and there were also fairly
good clocks in the towers; at night, watchmen patrolled the streets and
called out the hours. These watchmen were the police of the period; it was
part of their duty to call out the time, just as the modern police direct people
upon the way they wish to go. For timekeeping, the watch was still less
useful than the watchman. Made entirely by hand, it was necessarily
expensive; therefore, it was made regardless of expense. It was thought of
as Malvolio thought of it—a possession showing the wealth and station of
the wearer, a rich jewel, a toy for noblemen and for kings. Centuries were to
pass before real watches were within the reach of common people.
It is said that Edward VI was the first Englishman to possess a watch. This
young king, who reigned so short a time, will be remembered by many as
the young prince in Mark Twain's famous story The Prince and the Pauper.
Mary Queen of Scots had a small watch shaped like a skull—a cheerful
fashion of the time. Many others were shaped in the form of insects,
flowers, animals, and various other objects. Even to-day the Swiss make
many watches of curious form.

Queen Elizabeth and her court selected watches as modern women do their
hats—to match their various costumes. These watches were usually worn
on a chain or ribbon round the neck and were largely for display. Several
outside cases were often supplied with watches of that period, and they
were made to fit on over that which held the works; these were variously
ornamented with jewels, tortoise-shell and intricate pierced work in gold,
almost as delicate as lace. The covers were decorated with miniature
paintings, some of which were very beautiful.
Strangely enough, it was this practise of decorating watches that later gave
us our plain white enameled dials, because enamel was the best material on
which to paint delicately. To the average museum visitor, the interest in any
collection of old watches, aside from their historic association, lies in their
marvelously ornamented cases rather than in their mechanism. And in this
he very closely repeats the feeling of their original makers or owners; it was
more important to follow fashion than to know the time.
This custom of watch-decoration continued more or less through the
eighteenth century, and even into the nineteenth, although, by that time,
watches had, as we shall see, become excellent timepieces. The story is told
that when Dresden was captured by the Prussians in 1757, they found in the
wardrobe of Count Bruhl, the Saxon Minister, a different suit of clothes for
every day in the year; each had a watch, stick, and snuff-box, appropriately
decorated, as part of each one.
Shakespeare never regarded a watch seriously. In Love's Labour's Lost he
compares a woman to
A German clock,
Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,
And never going aright, being a watch—
A century after Shakespeare's day, Doctor Johnson remarked that a
dictionary was like a watch: "The worst is better than none, and the best
cannot be expected to go quite true." And Pope says in the same vein:
'Tis with our judgments as our watches—none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.

The "Nuremburg Egg," the First Real
Watch
"Out of a little iron, Peter Henlein constructs
clocks which ... can be carried in the pocket."—
so wrote Johannes Coeleus, in 1511.

All of this reminds one of Dickens' famous character, Cap'n Cuttle, whose
watch was evidently of the old school. Readers of Dombey and Son may
remember how "the Captain drew Walter into a corner, and with a great
effort, that made his face very red, pulled up the silver watch, which was so

big and so tight in his pocket that it came out like a bung. "Wal'r," said the
Captain, handing it over and shaking him heartily by the hand, "a parting
gift, my lad. Put it back half an hour every morning and another quarter
toward afternoon and it's a watch that'll do you credit.""
The old idea of regarding the watch as a trinket rather than as a timepiece,
as an expensive toy rather than as an accurate and necessary mechanism,
has come down to us from the days when a watch was ornamented outside,
because it could not be really useful within. Even now, in spite of the
modern demand for accurate timekeeping, that attitude has not entirely died
away, as is shown by the expression "gold watch" and "silver watch." Of
course, there are really no such things; there are merely gold and silver
cases for steel, brass and nickel watches. Some people still continue this
mistaken idea by thinking of a watch merely as jewelry, as a thing meant
more for ornament than for use.

CHAPTER NINE
How a Mechanical Toy Became a Scientific
Timepiece
ow, since we are at last well into the story of the watch, let us glance

N back over the road we have traveled. We have seen man first beginning
to think of time by noting the positions of shadows or the motions of
the stars. Next, we have seen him making his plans for days ahead by
means of the changes in the moon, then by making such division in the flow
of time as the month, the season, and the year. We have seen him growing
out of his savage isolated life in caves and forests and forming tribes and
settlements, and have seen him coming out of the darkness of those early
ages into Mesopotamia, the Land Between the Rivers, where our first
written history seems to begin.
Here, with great cities, temples, and a high degree of civilization and
culture, we have found priests studying the stars and making sun-dials and
clepsydræ in order to tell the time by shadows, sunbeams, or the dropping
of water. We have taken a glimpse at the wonderful people of Greece and
Rome, and have seen how, as they became more cultured, they found it
necessary to have more accurate means of telling time. We have considered
the advantages and disadvantages of the sand-glass, have found clumsy
pieces of clock-work in church towers, getting their running power from
weights, in order to strike the bells, and have stood with young Galileo in
the Cathedral at Pisa, when a swinging lamp gave him the idea of the
pendulum.
Lastly, we have seen the making of smaller clocks—that were made smaller
and smaller until they could be carried as watches, in which springs were
used instead of weights. Following this, it has been merely a question of
improvement, as one inventor after another has hit upon some idea that
would do away with this or that difficulty.
Thus we have come, in the time of Shakespeare, to a clever little
contrivance that ticked beautifully but registered time rather badly; that

took a long while to manufacture by hand, and cost so much that only the
rich could afford to buy it, and that, in consequence, people were proud to
own, but did not take seriously as a timepiece.
In all this journey, covering thousands of years, one thing has made itself
clear to us—the story of timepieces is not a mere mechanical story; it is a
human story. Men did not put together certain pieces of wood or metal in
order merely to make mechanism, but to meet a vital need. One might
almost say that the story of the watch is in the watch itself. The works run
and the hands move because of the mainspring, which by pressing steadily
forces them into motion. In very much the same way, the busy brains of the
inventors and the busy hands of the workmen have been kept active because
advancing civilization has been like a great mainspring, always pressing
upon larger affairs and greater numbers of people, always needing to fit its
engagements more and more closely together, and always calling for better
and better means for telling time. Thus, if the watch in the days of
Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth was still an inaccurate timepiece, its
improvement was a foregone conclusion. Brains and hands were still active;
civilization was still pressing.
It is said that a hog helped in the next development; he helped quite
unconsciously by furnishing a bristle. In order to understand this, we must
remember Galileo's swinging lamp and the pendulum that the Englishman,
Hooke, and the Hollander, Huyghens, applied in the making of clocks. It
will be recalled that a pendulum swings in arcs of different lengths in
exactly the same time and that this property is called isochronism. Both
Hooke and Huyghens could see that the application of isochronism would
be quite as valuable in a watch as in a clock, but they realized that this
could not be accomplished by means of the pendulum. Therefore, each
began to experiment, and each seems to have hit upon the same idea as a
substitute for the pendulum in about the year 1665.
This is where the hog's bristle came into use. One end was made fast while
the other was bent back and forth by the balance, as it swung to and fro.
Being short and stiff, it acted as a spring; in fact, its motion was something
like the swing of a small pendulum, and some people incorrectly claim that
the name of hair-spring first came from this use of a hair. Of course, a very
fine steel was soon substituted for the bristle. Next, it was realized that there
would be an advantage if a much longer spring were used, and obviously

the only way in which this could be done was by making it in the form of a
coil, and so we have the delicate, coiled hair-spring, as it is found in our
own watches to-day.
The principle of the hair-spring is not unlike that of the pendulum: the
farther the pendulum is swung out from the lowest point of its arc, the
greater is the force that gets it back; and the farther a spring is bent from its
position of rest, the greater is the force exerted to get it back. With both of
these devices it is possible to obtain regular beats and steady motion.
It is hard to realize that nearly a hundred years must have passed by before
the hair-spring came into common use. To-day any new device is described
in catalogs, written up in the papers, manufactured in quantities and is
quickly carried by travelers into every country, but in those days everything
was still made by hand, piece by piece, and there was comparatively little
travel that would admit of its distribution. Ideas made their way very
slowly. In fact, Julien Le Roy rediscovered the principle of isochronism and
announced it with a good deal of pride, quite ignorant of the fact that Hooke
and Huyghens explained it nearly a century before. And so the hair-spring
was slowly adopted by English watchmakers with a number of minor
improvements.
Other inventors, of whom presently we shall hear more, worked out better
methods of escapement, and the watch movement developed slowly toward
its present form. It became possible to tell time more accurately and to
make arrangements and plans more closely as the watch became a better
time-keeper. The pace of life was speeding up, and people were realizing
the value of minutes—even of seconds. Therefore the minute- and second-
hands were added to the hour-hand that so long had moved alone around the
watch-dial. And in 1704, Nicholas Facio, a Swiss doing business in London,
introduced jeweled bearings into the mechanism.
The importance of jewels is often misunderstood even at the present day.
Many people do not know why jewels are used in a watch, assuming that
they are intended for ornament or in some way to increase the value. But
most of the jewels in a watch-movement are placed out of sight; and,
although they often consist of real rubies or sapphires, they are so tiny and
their intrinsic value so small that no watch requires more than one dollar's
worth of jewels. They are strictly utilitarian in their purpose. A pivot or

bearing, running in a hole drilled in a jewel, creates almost no friction and
requires so little oil that a single drop as big as a pinhead is enough for an
entire watch. Because jewels are so hard and smooth, a watch with jeweled
bearings runs better and wears less and requires less power to drive it, than
one in which they are lacking.
During all the time recounted, the great mainspring of civilization had been
pressing, ever pressing. Nothing could be considered "good enough" if a
way could be found to improve it.
At last an improvement came out of the sea. Travel had been reaching out in
every direction; ships were fitted out by scores to take goods from England
or the continent of Europe to lands across the seas and to bring back the
products of these countries.
The time had been, but a few generations earlier, when people had stood on
the shores of the ocean and had wondered what might lie beyond their sight.
That water stretched out to the "edge of the world" they felt sure, but what
there happened to it they could not tell. Surely, however, it must be peopled
with monsters and demons. It was foolhardy to venture too far from land.
We can hardly realize what a piece of insane rashness it must have seemed
to most people when Columbus sailed out boldly into this vast mystery, nor
how the world was thrilled when he brought back word of strange lands and
strange peoples he had found beyond the horizon.
But by the time now reached in our story the oceans had become highways
of trade, and men were beginning to draw those strange, crude maps of the
continents, which make us smile until we stop to think how maps might
have looked had they been left for us to make. At all events, the problems
involved in navigation were being much discussed in every land.
One of the greatest of these problems was to discover the whereabouts of
the ship at any given time. When one is out of sight of land the sense of
location necessarily becomes inoperative; one wave looks like another, and
there are winds and currents which might carry a ship hundreds of miles out
of its course unless there were some way of knowing its true position. At
first, the stars, and later the compass gave help in giving direction but not in
showing position. How might this be done? There was no possible way in
which the element of telling time did not enter.

Table Watch in Drum-Shaped Case,
Nuremburg, before 1560 One of the Oldest
Watches in Existence

Table Clock by Bartholomew Newsom
London, 1565

Enormous Repeater Watch
Newsom, London, 1565

Large Brass Table Clock
Dutch, Seventeenth Century

First Forms of the Watch
Types of table clocks and two of the oldest
watches in existence In the collections of the
Metropolitan Museum.
That sounds a bit strange until one stops to think of the rotation of the earth
once in twenty-four hours. If one could travel around the earth, from east to
west, at a uniform rate in exactly twenty-four hours, he would find clocks
and watches indicating the exact minute he started at every step of his
journey; and the sun would remain steadily at the same height above the
horizon, if he always kept to one parallel of latitude. His rate of speed
would have to be about eighteen miles a minute, if he chose to travel along
the equator, or to state this same thing in another way, when it is noon in
New York, it is 11 A. M. in Chicago, 10 A. M. in Denver and 9 A. M. in San
Francisco; it is also 1 P. M. several hundred miles out into the Atlantic; 2 P.
M. still farther out; 5 P. M. in London; and so on. In other words, it is some
one of all the moments of the twenty-four-hour day at the same time, but the
time that indicates each of these moments is different at different points.

Therefore, if you could find out the time at any point, and could compare it
with the time at the place you had left, you would know just how far east or
west you had come, but not how far north or south.
Ascertaining the time was not difficult; at noon it would be shown by the
sun. Nor was it difficult to compare the time provided one had an accurate
timepiece, but a watch that ran either fast or slow might mislead one by
hundreds of miles. You can see how important it was that navigators have
some means of exactly measuring time. This was one of the points at which
the great mainspring of civilization pressed hardest upon the brains of
inventors and the hands of workmen.
So, from the sixteenth century onward, the leading governments of Europe
offered large rewards for a chronometer sufficiently accurate to determine
longitude at sea. In England, Parliament offered twenty thousand pounds, or
one hundred thousand dollars, for a time-keeper which, throughout a
voyage to the West Indies, would give the longitude within thirty miles.
This meant that it must keep time within a minute a month, or two seconds
a day. Both Huyghens and Hooke somewhat naively attempted to make a
pendulum clock keep time at sea; but imagine the action of a pendulum
while a ship was rolling and tossing!
The problem was really one for the watchmaker, since a clock is made for
keeping time while standing in one position and a watch for keeping time
while being moved about. John Harrison, the inventor of the famous
gridiron pendulum, finally won the munificent prize. In 1762, after several
trials and failures, he succeeded in producing a timepiece which varied,
under test, only a minute and four seconds during a voyage of some five
months. This was excellent timekeeping—far within half a second a day; it
made it possible for a captain at sea to determine his position within
eighteen miles. Harrison's mechanism was too complicated for description
in these pages. Indeed, it was so difficult of comprehension that, before
paying him his reward, the English government asked Harrison to write a
book of explanation in order that his inventions might be copied by other
makers. He did so and finally received the money. Harrison's ideas have
now been greatly simplified, but, in general, his plan is used in the making
of marine chronometers to this day; thus, in a sense, it is due to Harrison's
brain that our great ships are able to cross the ocean on almost schedule
time.

Both the first success of the chronometer and the later efforts toward
improving it had a great influence upon the next few generations of
watchmakers; the final improvements were made in the days of the
American Revolution. It was at this latter period that a man named Thomas
Mudge worked out the kind of escapement that is still used in our watches.
A little later, the Swiss-Parisian, Abraham Louis Breguét, improved the
hair-spring by bending its outer coil across the others to their center and
fastening it at that point in order that the spiral of the spring should expand
equally in all directions from the center.
The last development of importance consisted in doing away with the fusee.
The faults of this device had been the need of a thick watch to give it room,
and the danger that a broken mainspring might destroy other parts of the
movement in its recoil. French and Swiss watchmakers reduced the friction
until it needed very little power to run the mechanism, and then were able to
employ a mainspring which was not stiff enough to require a fusee.
American makers adopted this idea, but the British clung to the fusee and
the stiff spring; it has cost them much of their prestige as watchmakers and
much of their trade.
Thus, the mechanism of both clocks and watches was practically in its
present state by the year 1800. The "grandfather's clock" of that date may
look old-fashioned, but it tells time a modern way, and the mechanical ideas
in George Washington's watch were not so very different from those which
we find in our own. There have been many small improvements since, but
the great inventions had all been made.
It is interesting to remember that most of these inventions are due to the
English artisans of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, although in
delicate workmanship and beautiful decoration, they were equaled and
perhaps excelled by the Swiss and by the French. The work of producing a
satisfactory timekeeping machine, begun by priests and by astronomers, and
carried forward by the demands of the navigator and the patient labor of the
craftsman, had ended after thousands of years, in triumph. The ticking
contrivance of wheels, levers, and springs was no longer a mechanical toy;
it was a marvelous instrument which was made by man with his head and
hands and yet was almost as accurate in its action as the sun and stars
themselves.

Here ends the first great division of our story. The scientific problem had
been solved; what remained was to democratize the keeping of time; to
place mechanism equal to the best of those days within the reach and within
the means of every man. In this later development the work was to pass out
of the hands of artists and inventors into those of manufacturers. Its history
from this point on is no longer a record of science but a romance of
industry.

CHAPTER TEN
The "Worshipful Company" and English
Watchmaking
rom the beginning, there are two sides to the history of timekeeping. The

F first is the story of discovery and invention—how men labored for
thousands of years to produce a contrivance that would really tell the
time. But if only a few such machines existed in the world, it would be of
very little use to humanity in general, however perfect each might be.
Accordingly history must now recount how clocks and watches came to be
made in sufficiently large numbers and at sufficiently low cost to be within
the reach of all who needed them.
The turning-point from the inventive to the industrial side of the
development was reached about the year 1800. Timekeeping has always
been a part of history, and history a part of timekeeping, and this opening of
the nineteenth century was a period when history itself was changing, for
the progress of civilization is like a journey over a mountain road; one must
needs turn occasionally or one can rise no higher. The American Revolution
had ended but a few years before, and the thinly settled states were trying
the strange experiment of having the people govern themselves without a
king. In the old world, the people of France had suddenly risen up and
seized the power from their king, and a bloody struggle had ensued in
which many of the old nobility had been beheaded. In England, the power
of the throne was growing less and the power of the people greater. In fact,
the whole world was becoming more and more filled with democratic ideas
and ideals than ever before.
Now, this same democratic idea that set up republics was getting ready to
put a watch into every man's pocket. At first, everyone had told the time for
himself, and had told it badly. Now, after thousands of years, it had come
about that a few had the means of telling time accurately. The great
inventors mentioned in the last few chapters had contributed one idea after
another, until, among them all they had worked out clocks and watches that

would keep correct time. But these timepieces were not yet convenient in
form, and they certainly were not yet convenient in price for the average
man. They still were made by hand in small quantities, and such a condition
would have to be changed before it would be possible for everyone to tell
the time and to tell it well.
Naturally, the industrial and business development of watchmaking began
long before 1800, long before, indeed, the time at which the inventions
were all complete. For centuries the two sides of the story, the inventive and
the industrial, had progressed side by side, but for the sake of clearness, we
have described the inventions first. Now we must glance back again to the
time of Shakespeare, when the period of modern inventions was just
beginning, in order to see how the business side of watchmaking started
upon its growth.
Four nations have been concerned in this development—England, France,
Switzerland, and the United States. The English worked in one way; the
French worked in another; the Swiss, in still another; while the Americans
took up the final organization of the work in a manner that was thoroughly
typical of their peculiar genius.
The mechanical improvements and inventions were mostly made, as we
know, by the English. But for the beginnings of the watch industry in
England one must go back to a time before the days of Hooke and
Huyghens, to the year 1627, the year of incorporation of the Worshipful
Clock-makers, Company. Imagine such a name being chosen to-day! The
Worshipful Clock-makers' Company was the original trade-organization of
the business in England. It was not at all like our modern companies but
was one of those great trade "guilds" which played such an important part
in the development of European industry.

London about 1600

Octagonal Rock Crystal Watch
French, 1560-90

Square French Watch
Late Sixteenth Century

Oval French Watch
1590

Shell Shaped Rock Crystal Watch
French

Cross Shaped Rock Crystal Watch
French

Book Shaped Swiss Watch
1560-1600

When Watches Were Jewels
Watches of the Sixteenth Century, with but
one hand, and pierced metal or rock crystal
cases. In the collections of the Metropolitan
Museum.
People sometimes think of the medieval trade-guild as something like the
modern trade-union, but this is a mistake; it was in many ways quite
different. Perhaps one might call it a sort of a cross between a labor-union
and a manufacturing trust. Within a certain district, all who were occupied
in a particular business were required to belong to the guild; otherwise they
were not allowed to do business, and the "district" might include the whole
country. In order to gain an idea of a guild, imagine in this country a single
association of jewelers to which everyone connected with the jewelry
business was forced to belong, whether he were manufacturer or retailer,
employer, or employee, the head of his firm or the last new clerk behind the
counter. Or, to look at it in another way, imagine a trust controlling the
whole industry and a union including all the workmen under a closed-shop
system, and then suppose that the trust and the union were one and the
same. That would be like one of the great medieval guilds. It was easy for
such an organization to create a monopoly of the entire national product.

Sometimes the guild would forbid the importation of foreign goods and
would not permit workmen to come from other countries. It usually
regulated, to some extent, the conditions of wages and labor. It fixed its
own standards of quality of the product; if goods did not come up to this
standard, they might not be sold, and the rules of the guild had practically
the force of law. But it did not attempt to control prices, nor to limit the
quantity of production, nor to interfere, except very indirectly, with free
competition among its own members.
Thus, it was not, in our modern sense of the conception, a company at all,
but an association of independent manufacturers or tradesmen, each in
business for himself, each in competition with his fellow craftsmen, and all
kept upon a tolerably even footing by limiting the amount of labor that each
one might employ. Its members were the master craftsmen, each the head of
his own house; through them were associated the journeymen, or skilled
workmen in their employ, and the apprentices. These latter might rise to be
masters, in business for themselves. But no one without such a connection
could engage in the business at all, in any capacity whatever.
The Worshipful Clock-makers' Company, under its charter granted by
Charles I, had the power to make rules for the government of all persons
following the trade within ten miles of London, and for regulating the trade
throughout the kingdom. Its first master, or president, was David Ramsay,
who was mentioned as having been "constructor of horologes to His Most
Sacred Majesty, James I," and is one of the characters in Scott's novel "The
Fortunes of Nigel." Its wardens or executives were Henry Archer, John
Willowe, and Sampson Shelton; and there was, besides, a fellowship, or
board of directors. The company proceeded at once to forbid all persons
"making, buying, selling, transporting, and importing any bad, deceitful
clocks, watches, larums, sun-dials or cases for the said trade," and full
power to search for, confiscate and destroy all such inferior goods, "or
cause them to be amended."
This company limited the volume of business by forbidding any one master
to employ more than two apprentices at one time without express
permission; and, since all journeymen must first pass through the stage of
apprenticeship, this tended to keep up wages by limiting the labor supply
and to keep competition on a fair basis. The coat of arms of the company
represented a clock surmounted by a crown, the feet resting upon the backs

of four lions, all of gold, upon a black ground; on either side were the
figures of Father Time and of a king in royal robes; and the motto beneath
read: Tempus Imperator Rerum, or "Time, the Emperor of Things." These
matters sound rather quaint to us, but perhaps the quaintest of them all is the
idea of a monopoly concerning itself so jealously with the quality of the
product, and letting prices and competition practically alone.
It was under such conditions that the English work was done and the
inventions made. Huyghens was, of course, not an Englishman; and Hooke
was rather an inventor and a scientist than a manufacturer. Both these men
themselves made clocks and watches, but they made them only as
instruments to assist them in their researches, or as working-models of their
design. It was often said of Hooke that he never cared to develop an
invention after he had proved that it would work. But once these first
inventions had been adopted, the real production of timepieces was in the
hands of the Clock-makers' Company, and the great names were those of
clock-makers.
These were the days when the leaders of the industry worked with their own
hands as well as with their heads. We may imagine the master seated in the
front room of his shop studying over a new model, or putting together and
decorating one already made; or, perhaps, making with his own hands some
of the most delicate parts. From the back rooms would come the sound of
tapping or filing as the journeymen and apprentices were hard at work upon
their various tasks. Meanwhile, perhaps some apprentice, standing outside
the door, would call out to passers-by and urge them to step in and buy. This
was a favorite form of advertising in that time. For that matter, we still have
our "barkers" and "pullers-in" at Coney Island and elsewhere. Everything
about the small business was carried out under the personal direction of the
master and, where necessary, by his own hand. The phrase "clockmaker to
the King" meant something more when applied to such a man than merely
that royalty had purchased some product of his craft.
Such a one was Thomas Tompion, often called "the father of English
watchmaking." He was the leader of his craft in the time of Charles II and
he, more than anyone else, worked out the inventions of Hooke for actual
manufacture. He left his father's blacksmith shop to become a clock-maker,
from this he went on to the more delicate work of making watches, and at
last became a famous master of his guild. It may fairly be said of him that

he set the time for history in his day, for most of the royalty and great men
of Europe timed all their doings from banquets to battles by Tompion
watches.
Meanwhile, he, too, was making watchmaking history by his
improvements. Tompion made watches with hair-springs, balance-wheels
and escapements with various improvements. His design of the regulator is
nearly that in modern use. His cases, too, were as famous as the movements
that he made. The so-called "pendulum watches" were then much in
fashion, and Tompion met the demand by making a number of them. They
did not, of course, work with a pendulum; but one arm of the old foliot
balance could be seen through an opening in the case or dial, and looked
like a pendulum swinging to and fro. To read the advertisements of that day
one would think that all lost or stolen watches were of Tompion's making,
so often does his name appear in them.
Many legendary stories are told about Tompion's work. It has been set down
in cold print that Queen Mary gave one of his watches to Philip II of Spain,
and that he made watches for Queen Elizabeth. Unfortunately for such
stories, Tompion was not born until 1638, by which time both Mary and
Elizabeth had been dead for some years. But though the legends themselves
are untrue, yet they do shed some light upon their subject, for such stories,
true or false, are not told about unimportant men. And it is true that
Tompion grew so celebrated that at his death, in 1713, he was buried in
Westminster Abbey, where only the great may have resting-places.
Another famous watchmaker was George Graham, the inventor of the
mercury pendulum. He first was Tompion's journeyman, then his partner,
and at last became a well-known astronomer, having become interested in
astronomy through making astronomical clocks. But his great contribution
was the invention of the dead-beat escapement, which, in one form or
another, is in use in all the best clocks and watches of the present time, and
which has had more to do with making their accuracy possible than has any
other improvement since the discovery of the isochronism of the pendulum
and hair-springs. Graham, also, is buried in Westminster Abbey; his body
lies beside that of Tompion, his teacher and friend.
Another famous figure was Daniel Quare, the first to devise the mechanism
for driving the two hands as we have it to-day. Quare was a Quaker, and

was no less prominent in the Society of Friends than in his business. As a
Quaker, he was opposed to taking an oath of any kind, and was what we
now call a "conscientious objector" to warfare. Therefore, at the same time
that he was being honored by royalty for his work, he was being prosecuted
and fined for his refusal to pay taxes for the support of the army and of the
Established Church. When he was made clock-maker to King George I,
means had to be devised for excusing him from taking the oath of
allegiance.
It was Quare who originated the practise of giving to each watch a serial
number, so that it could always be identified. This is, of course, a common
custom with us; we also number automobiles, and many other manufactured
articles of value, and Quare's device of numbering watch-movements may
very well have given the start to all this.
Still other famous watchmakers were Harrison and Arnold and Earnshaw,
who between them developed and perfected the marine chronometer that
we discussed in the last chapter; and Mudge, in whose hands watch-
movements really became modern in type. Men of this kind thought first of
producing reliable work which would give service; ornaments, curiosities of
workmanship, and even convenience, were secondary. Some of these men
were extremely independent; for example, Arnold, in his early days and by
way of establishing a reputation, made a repeating watch less than a half-
inch in diameter—so small that it was worn set in a ring; but when King
George III had bought the masterpiece, and the Empress of Russia offered
one thousand guineas (more than five thousand dollars) for a duplicate,
Arnold coolly excused himself on the plea that he desired the specimen to
remain unique.
Time passed; machinery began to be employed in manufacturing and hand-
work declined. The guild system in every line slowly changed into our
modern organized industry. This was only natural, for factories were
becoming larger, their output was increasing and the head of the business
was no longer likely to be himself a master workman. The greater part of
this change, of course, took place in the nineteenth century, and was
primarily owing to the increased use of machine-power and improvement in
transportation. But as regards watchmaking in England, the substitution
never became complete, for the bulldog quality in the Englishman has
always made him hold fast to his ideas. Habits died hard, and the old

methods were changed slowly and under protest, even when these changes
spelled progress.
At first, as we have seen, the watch was the work of one man and of his
assistants, and was almost entirely handmade. In those days, the trade was
supplied by a multitude of small independent manufacturers. To make a
single watch might take weeks or months; and every one must be made
separately and patiently, regardless of labor or expense. So long as this
method could hold its own, the English watchmakers led the world; their
watches were good, but they certainly were not cheap.

Late—In Spite of His Two Watches
The gallant of Colonial times often carried two
watches, as was the fashion, but often they were
both unreliable.

After a time, other countries began to use more modern methods, and
English watches could no longer stand competition in the world's markets.
However, the bulldog quality still held; English manufacturers preferred to
lose ground rather than change their methods. The introduction of
machinery and the employment of women operatives were each bitterly
opposed. Factory production was never adopted on a large scale, nor was
there much combination of small independent manufacturers. Necessarily,
these things did, at last, come to be done; but half-heartedly, and without
much success. At one time, for example, there were some forty small
factories making various parts which each watch manufacturer assembled
and adjusted for himself.
The Clock-makers' Company is still in existence; although now, of course,
it has developed into a society like the ordinary modern association of
manufacturers. Under pressure of change and competition, English
manufacturers were compelled unwillingly to change their system of
production, but the character of the watches they would not change. The
same country which had made so many of the mechanical inventions finally
settled down into satisfaction with its models at a time when other nations
were continuing to make improvements, as, for example, when they clung
to the fusee after watchmakers abroad had found a better substitute.
The English watch has remained heavy, substantial, and reliable; it is an
excellent mechanism produced regardless of expense. Such a watch cannot
be made cheaply, least of all by British methods. There has been something
obstinate in the maker's attitude; if the law of supply and demand called for
something different, so much the worse for the law. The English have been
slow to see the possibilities in the cheap watch. They have not realized that
a watch need not be expensive in order to keep good time. They started to
put the watch into universal use, but left to other nations the completion of
the process.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
What Happened in France and Switzerland
cross the English Channel lives a race of a very different character. The

A French are people of highly adaptable minds; often they see
possibilities in the inventions of other nations which those other nations
have failed themselves to see. The automobile was first made in the United
States, but the French soon developed it into something that was better than
our early clumsy cars, and we were years in overtaking them. The Wright
Brothers first learned the secret of aerial flight, and then Wilbur Wright
sailed for France, where the people went wild with enthusiasm over the idea
of flying; it was in France that aviation really became what it is to-day.
The French have always been fine mechanics and finished workmen. It was
to be expected that they would do something artistic and interesting with
the manufacture of timepieces. They could not make a better watch than the
British were turning out toward the end of the eighteenth century. Nobody
could—but they could make it more beautiful. In Shakespeare's time and
afterward, while watches were still more valuable as works of art than they
could be as timepieces, the richest work of this nature was done in France.
There watches were made in the form of mandolins and other musical
instruments, in the form of flowers, in the form of jeweled butterflies, and
in wonderful cases, painted and enameled and engraved. In the J. Pierpont
Morgan collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, there is a
watch which, in 1800, on the fete-day after the battle of Marengo, Napoleon
Bonaparte gave to Murat, who was his brother-in-law and one of his
generals. On the back cover of this watch appears a miniature portrait of
Napoleon himself. And since he himself was the author of the gift, one may
assume that it represented the Great Emperor's own conception of himself.
The wrist-watch, to-day a military necessity, was at first a French idea. It is
interesting to learn that the merchants and makers of this kind of work were
in their own time called neither watchmakers nor horologists, but toymen.
There again is shown the old idea about watches; they were not timepieces
but toys.

Later on, toward the end of the period of invention, when first, the clock,
and soon afterward, the watch, had become fairly accurate timekeepers, the
French makers again took the lead in the same way; once more they
beautified what they could not practically improve. The French clocks of
the period of Louis XIV and his successors are celebrated for their design.
One might easily suppose, from an examination of the great modern
collections of rare and precious watches in our museums that the French
had been the leading watchmakers of the world, for the specimens there
found being selected chiefly for beauty or value from the collector's point of
view, are oftener of French than of any other make. Yet it must not be
supposed that the French made no inventions. The credit for some of the
important improvements is disputed between the English, French and
Swiss, and it is not always easy to decide which nation has the better claim.
Furthermore, certain of the French watchmakers came from Switzerland
while at various times, some of those in France moved to England,
especially during the reign of Terror. The distinctions are somewhat
confused and we can only speak in a general way.
However, while the watchmaking industry was developing in France, it
gave forth a seed which took root in new soil. In the hill country of eastern
France, in the town of Autun, there lived a watchmaker named Charles
Cusin. One day, in 1574, for reasons that we do not know, he moved a few
miles eastward across the border into Switzerland and there settled in the
beautiful lake city of Geneva. He probably had no thought that this personal
act of a private citizen would have an effect upon history, but an industry
employing thousands of people and making millions of dollars worth of
goods can be traced back to the time when he crossed the border.
Remember that this was back in the days of Shakespeare and Queen
Elizabeth, while watches were still esteemed jewels and ornaments for the
wealthy, and when the improvements which later made them practically
useful had not yet been invented. The business side of watchmaking was
thus growing up at the same time with the inventive and scientific; it was
preparing itself for the day when the mechanism should be perfected, and
the only remaining task would be to popularize its perfection.
Charles Cusin liked Switzerland and thirteen years later he became a
citizen. In the course of time, he was active in founding a watchmaker's
guild in Geneva and from that period Geneva watches have been famous.

This does not mean that Switzerland had contained no watchmakers before
Cusin's appearance, but we are considering the beginnings of a great
industry and not mere instances of isolated workmen. The man from Autun
seems to have been one of those energetic leaders who see possibilities and
know how to organize. It is largely through such men that the world
progresses.
You will remember that in an early chapter we touched upon the way in
which men first began to exchange the results of their work in order that
each man might devote most of his time to the special task for which he was
best fitted, such as hunting, or the making of weapons. Through this
exchange, everyone was enabled to live better than anyone could have lived
by himself. But if it were true that people doing different things could help
each other, it also became true, after a while, that people doing the same
thing could help each other and could help the general public, by learning to
co-operate. They could exchange ideas, improve their work, and bring
about better conditions. This was one of the effects of the guilds—they
changed crafts into industries.
The guild with which Charles Cusin now had to do—some say he was its
sole founder—was a very dignified and important board of master-
workmen. It was founded about fifty years earlier than was the Worshipful
Clock-makers' Company in England, and its members were no ordinary
workmen. Switzerland was, and still is, a thoroughly independent little
country and a man skilful enough to make a whole watch with his own
hands was apt to be a man who realized his own worth.
The members of this guild were decidedly particular about their dignity and
their meetings were serious occasions, as may be seen from Article I of
their regulations which read: "Whenever the master workmen shall meet in
a body to discuss subjects pertaining to their guild, they shall, before
proceeding to such discussion, offer prayer to God beseeching Him that all
that they say and do may rebound to His glory and may further the interests
of these people."
As a matter of fact this dignity was based upon a correct conception that has
been somewhat overlooked in the present busy age. The man who has to do
either with the manufacture or sale of timepieces does well to take his
position seriously since he is a most important link in our entire civilization.

Such a man may well reflect upon the fact that without the timepieces
which he produces or sells, the world would drop into hopeless confusion,
for human society is able to run smoothly and efficiently only when it is
correctly timed. Workmen and dealers engaged in such a vital industry have
a great responsibility to their fellow-men.
It is probable that members of this guild who met from time to time in the
Swiss city by the lake shores, under the shadows of the snow-topped Alps,
realized something of this responsibility. Their timepieces were not yet as
accurate as are ours of to-day, and the world was not yet so busy that its
affairs required the closest adjustment, but they at least were trying
earnestly to keep the human cogs running smoothly by turning out watches
as nearly perfect as their skill and knowledge would permit.
This may be seen again in Article V of their regulations; "The functions of
the jurors are to enforce the laws of the guild and to provide that there be no
infringement of the same. To this end, they shall be required to visit each
journeyman at least four times during the year, having power to seize all
articles which do not conform to the specifications now in force, to report
all delinquents to the worthy governing board, and to punish the offenders
in accordance with the gravity of their fault."

Limoges Enamel Watch
English 1610-25

English Repeater
about 1650

Silver Skull Watch, French.
Intended to remind the wearer that each
second brought death nearer

Gold Enamel Watch—French.

French Watch
intended for the head of a cane,
1645-70

Agate Case
French

Seventeenth Century Watches
Grew more elaborate and ornamental, but
scarcely more useful.
In the collections of the Metropolitan
Museum.
It is quite clear that Geneva was out for quality in watches, and, indeed the
name of the Swiss city has always been associated with quality.
Nevertheless, they were no angels—those old Swiss craftsmen; they were in
fact quite preponderatingly human. Thus it was not long before they began
to make a tight little monopoly of their business. They restricted the number
of workmen who might be admitted to the guild, and they secured special
ordinances by means of which all other watchmakers were forbidden to

establish themselves within a certain distance of the city. In other words,
they did not purpose allowing the new and promising industry to grow
beyond their control.
There were, however, other independent people in those days who hadn't
the slightest intention of being bound by such restrictions. Here and there, a
watchmaker left Geneva to carry on his work in some foreign city, as, for
example, in Besancon, France. Thus began a competition which grew and
spread as time went on.
This competition developed some interesting features. For example, the
guild in Geneva obtained the passage of laws forbidding anyone from
bringing into the city, in a finished state, a watch constructed within a
certain distance. "Schemes" for watches and certain parts might be made at
will, but only members of the citizen guild were permitted to complete
these schemes.
Such restrictions naturally did not tend toward low-priced watches; but all
watches in those days were necessarily high-priced, and a man wealthy
enough to afford one was apt to seek the best that could be bought.
Geneva's strictness gave it so great a reputation that during the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries foreign watchmakers flocked to the Swiss city very
much as art students later journeyed to Paris, and it became the
acknowledged center of the European industry. As time went on the demand
for time-pieces became more widespread and many Genevans moved to
other cities where they became dealers in Geneva watches. It is said that, in
1725, the city of Constantinople contained as many as eighty-eight
mercantile agents who had become established in this way.
One hundred years after the founding of the guild, Geneva was producing
five thousand watches a year, having one hundred masters of the guild and
three hundred journeymen. Now five thousand watches is no small output
when it is considered that each one must be constructed entirely by hand
and occupied a matter of weeks in the making; yet, by 1799, the city
contained nearly six thousand watchmakers and jewelers and was producing
fifty thousand timepieces a year.
Not many miles to the northward from Geneva is another mountain city—
that of Neuchatel. Neuchatel also contained an enterprising and skilful
population, for the Swiss people seem to have been naturally ingenious and

skilful in the use of tools. Doubtless the mountainous character of the
country has had something to do with this fact; farming and fruit-raising are
slow, hard work in their rocky soil and severe climate and the making of
bulky articles is not desirable where transportation must be had over
mountain trails.
The Swiss with their clever fingers had long been famous for their wood-
carving; now, when they had a chance at an industry which called for
delicate and skilful hand-work and which produced goods of small size and
high value, it exactly suited them.
Geneva "saw it first," but kept it so closely to herself that it was several
generations later before watches were known in the Neuchatel district not
far away, yet, this district is another great center of the industry.
It is said that in 1680, more than one hundred years after Charles Cusin
moved to Geneva, a horse-dealer from the little town of La Sagne, came
home from his travels and brought with him an English watch. Great was
the wonder that it excited among the simple people of his native place. They
passed from hand to hand the little ticking mechanism which had the
strange power to tell time, and then one day the ticking ceased, which
perhaps is not surprising, in view of the freedom with which the watch had
been handled.
The horse-dealer knew nothing of the mechanism but was very anxious to
have the works set right. It chanced that there was a young locksmith in La
Sagne, a lad of only fifteen, named Daniel Jean Richard, who was so skilful
and ingenious that he had already made repairs in the tower clock of the
village. "Show the watch to Daniel Jean Richard" said everybody.
The delighted lad began to take the delicate mechanism apart, studying
carefully each wheel and spring and lever until he felt that he understood
exactly how it should work. Then, when he had succeeded in reassembling
the parts and in making the watch tick bravely once more, he was seized
with a great ambition to build another one all by himself.
After many experiments with his crude locksmith tools, he did produce a
watch which would run and which would tell time after a fashion—the first
watch ever made in the Neuchatel district—but it did not satisfy his artist's
soul and he realized that he must have better tools.

Somebody told him that there was in Geneva a machine for cutting wheels,
and he set out to see it for himself, only to come back sadly disappointed.
Wherever he asked to see the machine, the canny Geneva craftsmen shook
their heads. This eager lad from another town had far too intelligent a face
to be allowed to learn the precious secrets. The most that they would do was
to let him have a few of the wheels made by the machine.
Then he began to work out for himself a machine to cut the wheels, and at
last succeeded in the task, so that before long he was well on the way to
becoming a watch manufacturer. Richard, however, was generous with his
ideas; he instructed a number of the young men of his district, so that
watchmaking soon began to flourish in his town and in those about it.
We have now seen how the watchmaking industry became established in
two great centers—in Geneva, where the highest quality was maintained,
but under the rule of the guild, which did not encourage quantity of output,
and in the Neuchatel region where no guild system existed. In the course of
time this latter region overtook and passed in quantity of output that of
Geneva. By 1818, the Neuchatel district of the Jura was turning out watches
at the rate of 130,000 a year.
The solid old Geneva watchmakers criticized their rivals as being less
exacting in quality and less careful as to the standard of gold used in their
cases, but the Neuchatel people had no difficulty in finding customers; we
read that one hundred and forty of their merchants went twice a year to the
Leipsig fair, where they sometimes sold watches to the value of four million
francs ($800,000) in a year.
The two principal centers of Swiss watchmaking have been mentioned
although, of course, watches were made in other districts as well. It is easy
to see that many generations ago it had already become a very large
industry, and so we need not be surprised to learn that even to-day the tiny
inland country produces a larger annual export value of watches than even
our vast United States. Watchmaking has been so large a source of wealth
that the Swiss government has aided it in every way, including the
establishment of schools and courses for training skilled workmen. More
than sixty thousand Swiss people are directly employed in the Swiss watch
industry and over three hundred thousand, or one-twelfth of the entire
population, are indirectly connected with it. The Swiss have also made

many inventions and improvements so that they have had much to do with
the development of the watch itself as well as with the industry.
As we have already seen, it was a Swiss who invented the fusee, another
who introduced the use of jewels for reducing friction and the stemwind is
also of Swiss origin. It was the Swiss, too, who, early in the nineteenth
century, did away with the solid upper plate which covered the works and
used, instead, a system of bridges. The bridge form of movement allows
each part to be repaired or adjusted separately and to-day it is to be found in
all watches of the higher grades.
The Swiss invention of the fusee, described in Chapter VIII, played an
important part for several hundred years, but at last it was replaced by
something simpler and still more effective. Made to equalize the difference
in the pressure exerted by a stiff mainspring when first wound up and when
partly run down, it worked beautifully but was rather clumsy; and it
required comparatively heavier parts which naturally necessitated the use of
greater power. Thus friction and, consequently, wear were increased. But
the Swiss by making watch-parts that were very light but yet strong, and by
reducing friction principally through the introduction of jewels into the
mechanism, succeeded at last in getting a movement that could be run with
very little power. So they now could use a weak and slender mainspring,
made so long that only its middle part ever was wound and unwound, and
thus the pressure remained equal, and the use of the fusee was no longer
necessary. This principle, called the "going barrel" construction, reduced
friction, and made the thin modern watch a possibility. The American
makers, as we shall presently see, adopted the "going barrel" construction
practically from the first. They had no traditional prejudices, and they knew
a good mechanical idea when they saw it.
But the British would have none of it. Their national bulldog quality set its
teeth on the old idea that had given them their heavy, substantial, accurate
watches, and hung on grimly. The Swiss watches might be lighter and more
graceful but they questioned their lasting qualities. The Swiss could make
watches more beautifully, but the English were suspicious of cheapness and
declined to adopt the new development.
Thus the English, who up to about 1840, had led the world in the
manufacture and sale of watches, began to fall behind. The American watch

industry was then in its infancy, and the French industry had never been of
any great size. The Swiss gradually drew ahead until they practically gained
control of the world's market for watches. Switzerland became known as
the place from which watches came, and, very much as "Havana" stands for
a fine cigar, so a fine watch was apt to be called a "Geneva."

The Swiss "Manufacturer" and a Craftsman
In former days, Swiss workmen made some
particular watch part in their own homes, while

so-called "manufacturers" bought the parts and
"assembled" the watches.

This, then, was the situation at about the middle of the nineteenth century
when watchmaking in America was beginning to grow into a large industry.
The French had always made good watches and very beautiful and
elaborate ones too, but they never made very many. The English were
falling behind so far that it was said, in 1870, that half the watchmakers'
tools in England were in pawn. The Swiss were in control of the business,
making both the best and the worst watches in the world and by far the
greatest number. Everywhere a good watch was still too costly to be owned
by anyone of moderate means, while cheap watches were little more than
toys which could not be depended upon either to wear well or to keep good
time.
In spite of all developments, therefore, there still remained the need both for
a high-grade watch at a reasonable price and for a cheap watch that would
be accurate under rough usage. These things were genuinely necessary, for
the world was growing steadily away from the theory of special privilege,
and the requirements of the average man were becoming more insistent.
From those early days, when the astrologers in Mesopotamia had kept their
knowledge a secret for themselves, down through more than forty centuries,
only a few had possessed the means of accurately telling time; but now had
come the railroad, the telegraph, the modern factory, the newspaper and
many other developments which speeded up the movements of humanity in
the rush and whirl of modern life until it had become absolutely necessary
that the means of measuring and performing those movements in an
economical manner should be within the reach of every man.
It remains to be shown how American watchmaking discovered this need
and organized to meet it; how it found and filled the gap that had been left
in foreign watchmaking, between high-priced watches that were good, and
low-priced watches that were not good; how it developed a cheaper good
watch and a better low-priced one than the world had so far known; and
how, in so doing, the American industry has grown within the memory of
living men to such an extent as to take second place, and, in many respects,
first place in watchmaking throughout the world.

CHAPTER TWELVE
How An American Industry Came On Horseback
t last the clock industry came to America, and it came on horseback. If

A you had been upon a dusty country road in Connecticut about the year
1800, you might have seen a plainly dressed young man come riding
along with a clock strapped to each side of his saddle and a third fastened
crosswise behind him.
"Hello, Eli Terry!" you might have heard some farmer sing out, as the rider
drew near.
"Hello, Silas," the other would call back; "don't you think it's about time
you bought a clock?"
"Can't afford it, Eli; it takes me a long time to make forty dollars raising
wheat."
"Yes; but you can't afford to be without one, Silas." And, dismounting, he
would unstrap one of the clocks and bring it up to the stone wall. Then
would follow the period of bargaining, so dear to the shrewd, hard-headed
sons of Connecticut. Perhaps when young Terry climbed back into the
saddle and said "Gid-dap," one of his clocks would stay behind with the
farmer. Like most successful salesmen, Terry was a close observer of
human nature; he knew that habits once formed are hard to break. He
discovered early that if a prospective customer could be made to depend
upon a clock for telling time, the clock would soon sell itself. One day,
during a rain-storm, he sought refuge in a farmer's home. He brought in
with him one of his clocks and placed it on the mantel over the fireplace,
explaining that he would like to leave it there, where it would not get wet,
while he continued on his journey.
"I'll be back for it in a few days," he said, as he waved good-by.
When Terry returned, some days later, the farmer realized that the clock,
which he had first regarded as an extravagance had somehow become a

necessity, and, with no urging on Terry's part, the sale was quickly
completed.
Some of the original clocks are still running in the very farmhouses where
Eli Terry succeeded in selling them, and where they have ticked off the
minutes of American history since the days of Adams and Jefferson. They
were truly remarkable clocks, in spite of the fact that their works were cut
out of hard wood with country tools, and put together by a carpenter.
The first American clocks were made of wood, and most of the early
clockmakers were at first carpenters. We have seen clockmakers developing
from priests and astronomers and blacksmiths and locksmiths and jewelers;
but here is a new gateway to the trade. This came about naturally enough in
a country where the cheapest and most plentiful material was wood, and
where the carpenter and joiner was accustomed to constructing every
possible thing of it. Eli Terry of Connecticut was one of the best known of
these early New England craftsmen. He was born in East Windsor, just a
few years before the Revolution. By the time that he was twenty, he had
made a few clocks, cutting the wheels out of hard wood with saw and file,
and making wooden hands, dials, and cases. Then he moved to Plymouth,
not far from Waterbury, and set up a small shop where he employed several
workmen. They would make a dozen or two at a time, entirely by hand.
Then Terry would take these out and sell them, sometimes as far as the
"new country" across the New York state line.
It took a long time to make a clock in this way, even for fingers that were as
clever as Terry's, and it is no wonder that he was compelled to charge from
twenty to forty dollars apiece, a sum, which, by-the-way, would be equal to
at least four times as much to-day according to the difference in the
purchasing power of money. We must remember, too, that a family then
bought its clock as it bought a wagon or a spinning-wheel, almost as a man
buys his house to-day. Certainly it was a far more important transaction
relatively than the purchase of a motor-car.
Probably, if one could have overheard some of these roadside clock-sales it
would have been noted that the bargaining was not all upon one side, for
there was not a great deal of money in circulation, and people were very apt
to "swap." Likely as not, Terry would have to take his payment in lumber,
in clothing, or in some other commodity and these, in turn, he would

dispose of when an opportunity presented itself. This was more or less the
type of the old horseback Yankee trader of the days when men still
remembered the Revolutionary War. These were the days when a man who
produced some one thing might be forced, in order to realize on its value, to
trade it for almost anything else.
When we think of the early American timepiece, we generally picture to
ourselves the so-called "Grandfather's Clock," the kind with the tall case
which Longfellow wrote about as standing on a turning in the stair and
ticking away: "Forever!" "Never!" "Never!" "Forever!" as it marked the
passage of the years. But Eli Terry, the first of all American clock-makers,
could not well carry such a big contrivance with him on his horseback trips;
therefore, while he made the works for these clocks, he left it for other
people to construct the cases; the clocks which he sold complete were those
which could stand upon a shelf or hang upon the wall.
After a time, his orders increased to a point where he felt justified in
moving into an old water-power mill and rigging machinery to do some
parts of the work. Thus we find machinery used in American clock-making
almost from the beginning of the industry. Terry thus was a real
manufacturer; he had grasped the importance of machine production in
contrast to hand-craftsmanship.
The move paid; it cut the cost of making nearly in half and greatly
increased the output. He now could afford to sell his clocks more cheaply,
and the business grew at once. After a while he began to make clocks in lots
of one or two hundred and then, indeed, his neighbors shook their heads
gravely.
"You are losing your mind, Eli," they told him, in solemn warning. "The
first thing you know, the country will be so full of clocks that there will be
no market for them. You are getting reckless and ruining your business."
But Eli Terry followed his own judgment instead of that of the croakers;
before he died he was making ten or twelve thousand clocks in a year and
was selling them too. They brought him a fortune.
Thus was the industry of making timepieces born in America. It began in
New England, which is still the chief center of manufacture, and it began
with clocks, not watches, for the simple reason that in those days, a watch

was a luxury whereas a clock was a necessity. Like the watch industry in
Switzerland, American clock-making was an active business from the start,
and, as we have seen, the man with whom it started was a typically Yankee
combination of ingenious mind, skilful fingers, and a knack for business.
Of course, the conditions of life in America at that time had a great deal to
do with methods used in building up the industry. Instead of a civilization
centuries old that had wealth, rank, royalty, and a complete organization of
all methods of living, here was a new country learning to do things in its
own way.
It is hard for us to imagine the conditions which prevailed when our whole
population was a mere fringe of scattered settlements along the Atlantic
seaboard; when people made long trips on horseback or by stage-coach and
men wore powdered wigs and knickerbockers; when New York was a small
town on the lower end of Manhattan Island, and Chicago had not even been
dreamed of. Still, it was necessary to tell time, and our thrifty ancestors
needs must watch the minutes in order to save them as thriftily as they
saved everything else. Not one person out of hundreds, in a country where a
living must be wrung from the soil by means of hard work, could afford to
own anything so expensive as a watch, but every one felt it necessary to
have a clock, if possible, and it became one of the greatest treasures of the
home.

The First Yankee Clock Maker
Eli Terry, America's first clock manufacturer,
peddled his wares among the shrewd, hard-
headed sons of Connecticut.

This, then, was the market in which Terry and those who followed him had
to sell. It was a market that could not afford to pay for ornament but desired
practical service at low cost. What was needed, therefore, was a clock that
would keep time and cost not a cent more than was absolutely necessary.

The American industry was forced to start upon a basis entirely different
from that of Europe.
As Eli Terry's business grew, he needed assistance, and he secured the help
of a young mechanic named Seth Thomas from West Haven, and the two
worked together for some time.
The name of Seth Thomas has appeared upon so many clock-dials that it is
perhaps the best known name in all American clock-making. He was a good
mechanic, and a good business man, and he had ideas of his own about
increasing trade. In the course of time, about the year 1800, he and a man
named Silas Hoadley bought the original Terry factory in the old mill, and
set up business for themselves. Terry, however, established himself
elsewhere and continued to manufacture clocks.
Thus the industry was growing; there were now two factories instead of
one. Seth Thomas prospered by adopting each popular fashion or
improvement in clocks as it came along and applying it upon as large a
scale and as honestly and well as could be done. He built up such a
reputation that even to-day, while the name of Seth Thomas on a clock face
does not suggest any particular form or style of clock, it is associated with
good time keeping and honest workmanship.
The third of the famous old New England clock-makers was Chauncey
Jerome. He was a man younger than Terry and Thomas by nearly a
generation. Like both of his predecessors he was brought up to the
carpenter's trade, and like both of them he was a born New England trader.
But of the three, Jerome was perhaps most the inventor and least the man of
business. As a boy, he worked for Seth Thomas when Thomas was still
building barns and houses. He worked for Eli Terry in the old shop at
Plymouth. Then, after a period of soldiering in the War of 1812, he went
back to clock-making, sometimes manufacturing by himself and sometimes
associated with one or the other of the two older men, or in other firms and
enterprises too numerous to follow. Always he seems to have been
somewhat of a rolling stone, although in his time he gathered as much moss
as the best of them: always he was inclined to experiment with new ideas.
Jerome's carpentering skill caused him to be first interested in the making of
cases, and most of the familiar forms of old American clocks—the square
clock with pillars at the corners and a scroll top, the clock with a mirror

underneath the dial and the like, were designed by Terry and Jerome
between them. Later on, when the establishment of brass foundries in
Waterbury and Bristol had enabled American makers to construct their work
of brass instead of wood, Jerome worked out a design for a brass one-day
timepiece in a wooden case, small enough for easy transportation, and
cheaper than any clock ever made up to that time. Its price at first, near the
place of manufacture, was only five or six dollars, but afterwards this was
reduced.
This low-priced clock was as remarkable in its way as was the dollar watch,
which it foreshadowed. And like the watch, it would not have been possible
except through machine work and quantity production. It was a success at
once and Jerome's business rapidly increased. In 1840, he was established
in Bristol, turning out the new clocks by the thousand, and rapidly making a
fortune. A year or two later, he decided to send a consignment of them to
England.
Again, people shook their heads and prophesied failure. "You're losing your
mind, Chauncey," they told him as they had told Eli Terry before him.
The older wooden movements could not, of course, endure a sea voyage
without swelling and becoming useless. A brass movement could, of course,
be sent anywhere, and some of the more expensive ones had been shipped
to all parts of the country, yet it seemed absurd enough to send American
clocks to England where labor was so cheap—to England, which was then
the chief clockmaker of the world. Nevertheless, Jerome persevered, and his
son sailed for London with a cargo of the cheap clocks. At first, the English
trade would have none of them. No clock so cheap could possibly be good,
they said, and Connecticut was the home of "the wooden nutmegs." It was
only after great difficulty that they were introduced. Young Jerome got rid
of the first few by leaving them about in retail stores, asking no payment for
them until sold.
The enterprise was saved by an event which was a joke in itself. The
English revenue law at that time permitted the owner of imported goods to
fix their taxable value. But the government could take any such property
upon payment of a sum ten per cent greater than the owner's valuation.
Jerome's clocks were valued at their wholesale price, and were presently

seized by the customs officials on the ground that this valuation was
fraudulently low.
The elder Jerome chuckled upon learning of this. He was well satisfied to
have closed out his first cargo at ten per cent profit, and at once sent over
another shipment which was taken over by the customs as promptly as the
first. But by the time the third consignment arrived, enough of the clocks
had been sold to establish a demand for them among the retailers, and the
officials finally conceded that the low price might be a reasonable one after
all.
Jerome was not at the height of his prosperity. He had the largest and
probably the most profitable clock business in the country; and, in the few
years following, his product was exported to all parts of the world. Then the
Bristol factory burned down and he moved to New Haven, where the
Jerome Manufacturing Company enjoyed a brief period of great success.
The business was constantly extended, and the wholesale price of the cheap
brass clocks was brought as low as seventy-five cents. This figure seems
almost impossibly low for the time, but the authority for it is Jerome's own
autobiography.
A few years before the Civil War, the Jerome Company failed and,
curiously enough, this failure came about through its connection with that
usually successful man, P. T. Barnum, the famous showman. The story is
too much complicated to be given here in detail, but it seems that Barnum
had become heavily interested in a smaller clock company, which was
merged with the Jerome concern. The overvaluation of its stock, combined
with mismanagement and speculation among the officials of the Jerome
Company, served to drive the whole business into bankruptcy. Barnum lost
heavily, and it took him years to clear up his obligations. Jerome never did
recover from it; after some years of failing power in the employ of other
manufacturers, he died in comparative poverty.
His long and eventful life spans the whole growth of the American clock
business from the days of Eli Terry and his handsawed wooden movements
down to the maturity of the modern business supplying, by factory methods
and the use of specialized machinery, millions of clocks to all parts of the
world. He had made clocks all over Connecticut, in Plymouth, Farmington,
Bristol, New Haven and Waterbury, as well as in Massachusetts and, for a

time, in South Carolina and Virginia. He had worked with his hands for
Terry and Seth Thomas at the old wooden wheels and veneered cases,
which were peddled about the country and sold for thirty or forty dollars
each to be the treasured timekeepers of many households. And he had
headed a modern factory, turning out dollar clocks by the tens of thousands.
It is said that a child in the first few years of its life lives briefly through the
whole evolution of civilized mankind. That "infant industry," American
clock-making, likewise, in the short space of fifty years passed through
most of the steps of the whole growth of time-recording between the
Middle Ages and our own era. This country stands now among the leading
clock-making nations of the world; its product is famous in every land and a
timepiece from Waterbury or New Haven may mark the minutes in the town
from which Gerbert was banished for sorcery because he made a time-
machine, or in that land between the rivers where the Babylonians first
looked out upon the stars.
Most of the American clocks are still made in Connecticut; in fact, more
than eighty per cent of the whole world's supply (excluding the German)
comes from the Naugatuck Valley. The New Haven Clock Company, which
is the successor of the Jerome Company, is to-day one of the largest. As far
back as 1860, it was producing some two hundred thousand clocks a year.
The Seth Thomas Company and others of the historic concerns are still at
work in various portions of the state. And the Benedict & Burnham
Company, with which, at one time, Chauncey Jerome was associated,
became the Waterbury Clock Company, now regarded as the largest clock
producer, and of which we shall hear more later on.
The key-note of the whole development was that new principle which
American invention, prompted and stimulated by the pressing necessities of
a new nation, brought into the business of time-recording—the principle of
marvelously cheapening production-costs without loss of efficiency,
through the systematic employment of machinery on a large scale.
As long as the inventive brains and the technical knowledge of the old-time
craftsman found expression only through his own fingers, the results would
be limited to his individual production, and the costs would be
proportionately high. When, however, the master mind was able to operate
through rows of machines, each under the supervision of a mechanic trained

to its particular function, his inventive genius was provided with ten
thousand hands and a hundred thousand fingers. Furthermore, the
production gained in quality as well as in quantity, because of
specialization, all the time its costs were in process of reduction. This,
perhaps, has been America's chief contribution, not only to the making of
timepieces, but, also to the world's industry in general.

English Clock American Clock
about 1700— Black Walnut on
Floral Marquetry Pine
in Walnut Eighteenth
Ground Century

"Grandfather's Clocks"

These huge but beautiful clocks represent the
most reliable form of timepiece known to the
people of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth
Centuries. In the Metropolitan Museum.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
America Learns to Make Watches
hile Eli Terry was sawing wood for his curious clocks back in the

W early days of the nineteenth century, Luther Goddard, America's first
watch-manufacturer, was preaching the Gospel to the town and
country-folk in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Between sermons he
repaired watches.
Although we can find no record of such a meeting, it is easy to imagine that
while plodding along some dusty country road Preacher Goddard met Terry
jogging along with his cumbersome wooden clocks hanging from his
saddle. The thought may have come to the minister-mechanic that it would
be much easier to peddle watches than clocks.
Whatever may have been the prompting, we find, as a matter of record, that,
in the year 1809, while Terry was making and peddling his clocks, Luther
Goddard set up a small watch-making shop in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts,
the place of his birth. He employed watch-makers who had learned their
trade in England. At that time, there was a law in force which prohibited the
importation of foreign-made watches into America and this gave Goddard
his chance. But in 1815, when the law was repealed and the American
market was quickly flooded with cheaper, if not better watches from abroad,
he was forced to retire from the field. During those few years he had
produced about five hundred watches.
Discouraged by his venture into worldly affairs, he turned again to his
former occupation of preacher and evangelist, and consoled himself with
the remark that he "had here a profession high above his secular vocation."
In those days, protection and free trade had not yet become the rival
rallying cries of two great political parties; otherwise we might have found
this early manufacturer entering politics instead of the pulpit. While he is
credited with manufacturing the first American watches, however, it is
doubtful whether he and his workmen really did more than to assemble
imported parts.

More than twenty years now passed before another effort was made to
produce watches in America—this time by two brothers—Henry and James
F. Pitkin of Hartford, Connecticut. In 1838, they brought out a watch, most
of the parts of which were made by machinery, but it proved more or less a
failure. After a brief struggle, they gave up in discouragement. Henry Pitkin
died in 1845, and his brother, a few years later.
While the Pitkin Brothers were struggling with their problem in Hartford,
Jacob D. Custer of Norristown, Pennsylvania, was engaged in a similar
task. He succeeded in making a few watches between 1840 and 1845, thus
gaining his niche in history as the third American watch manufacturer.
But all of these were merely forerunners, for now there stepped upon the
stage a young man whose ability and perseverance were destined to launch
American watch-making fairly upon its way. This young man was born in
Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1813, and his name was Edward Howard; it
was born in him to be an inventive and ingenious craftsman and to feel
toward the mechanism of time-keeping the devotion of an artist to his art.
At the age of sixteen, he was apprenticed to Aaron Willard, Jr., of Roxbury,
one of the cleverest clock-makers of his time.
Young Howard took to clock-making as naturally as a Gloucester man takes
to the sea. Some of the clocks he then made are still ticking as vigorously as
ever. Having presently learned all he cared to know about clock-making, he
cast about for other fields of action. His bent, as he himself said, "was all
for the finer and more delicate mechanism," and it was natural that these
qualities of the watch should absorb his interest. It was equally natural,
since he was an American clock-maker at a time when that trade was being
revolutionized by machine-work, that he should dream of applying such
methods to the watch.
"One difficulty I found," he is quoted as saying, "was that watch-making
did not exist in the United States as an industry. There were watchmakers,
so-called, at that time, and there are great numbers of the same kind now,
but they never made a watch; their business being only to clean and repair. I
knew from experience that there was no proper system employed in making
watches. The work was all done by hand. Now, hand-work is superior in
many of the arts because it allows variation according to the individuality of
the worker. But in the exquisitely fine wheels and screws and pinions that

make up the parts of a watch, the less variation the better. Some of these
parts are so fine as to be almost invisible to the naked eye. A variation of
one five-thousandths of an inch would throw the watch out altogether, or
make it useless as a timepiece. As I say, all of these minute parts were
laboriously cut and filed out by hand, so it will readily be understood that in
watches purporting to be of the same size and of the same makers, there are
no two alike, and there was no interchangeability of parts. Consequently it
was 'cut and try'. A great deal of time was wasted and many imperfections
resulted."
Howard's ambition lay in the production of a perfect watch for its own sake;
and he wanted to make it by machinery, believing that, in that way, it could
be made most perfectly. Other people had thought of the same thing. Pitkin
had attempted it, and there had been some experiments of like nature in
Switzerland. But the man who loves his work as Howard did will succeed
in anything short of the impossible, because neither time nor labor, neither
failure nor discouragement, matter at all to him as against the hope of
making his dream come true.
As Howard was emerging into young manhood, the great period of
American invention was rapidly developing. Morse was struggling with the
electric telegraph which he invented and perfected in 1835, and Goodyear
was busy with machinery and processes for enabling rubber to be used
commercially, thus laying the foundation for one of the greatest American
industries of to-day. Ingenuity was in the air and invention was conquering
realms that had been believed beyond reach.
When people told Howard that it was absurd to think of improving upon the
manual skill of centuries, he answered that he expected to make his
machinery by hand. And when they said that a machine for watch-making
would be more wonderful than the watch itself, he only laughed and agreed
that this might be so.
To-day, we are familiar with such phrases as "standardized parts" and
"quantity production," which explain to us how it is possible for a single
factory to produce millions of watches in a year, or for another kind of plant
to turn out half a million automobiles in a like period. The way in which
"quantity production" came about is curiously interesting. Watch-making
received one of its greatest impulses from a famous American inventor who

probably would have been amazed had anyone told him that his idea upon
quite another subject would some day help to put watches into millions of
pockets.
There is no particular connection between a cotton-gin and the "quantity
production" of watches, but it is interesting to know that the same ingenious
brain which designed the one also unconsciously suggested the other. Late
in the eighteenth century, Eli Whitney gained lasting fame as the inventor of
a machine which would automatically separate the seeds from the fiber of
crude cotton—a machine which revolutionized the cotton industry of the
south.
In 1798, Whitney secured a contract to manufacture rifles for the
government. He decided that they could be made much more rapidly and
cheaply if he could find some way to produce all the separate parts in large
quantities by machinery, and then merely assemble the various parts into
the completed weapon. The inventive mind which was capable of devising
the cotton-gin found this new problem to be comparatively simple, and it
was not long before Whitney was making thousands of rifles from machine-
made "standardized parts," where only one could be made before. Half a
century later his machinery was still turning out rifles parts in the great
arsenal at Springfield, Massachusetts, and it was not until this period that it
exerted a distinct influence upon watch-making.
While Howard in Roxbury was dreaming of producing watches by
machinery, another young man—Aaron L. Dennison, of Boston—was also
obsessed with the same dream and grappling with the same problem. It is
therefore not strange that the paths of these two soon crossed. Born in
Freeport, Maine, 1812, Dennison was just a year older than Howard. He
was an expert watch-repairer and watch-assembler, having learned his craft
among the Swiss and the English workmen in New York and Boston. The
year 1845 found him conducting a small watch and jewelry business in
Boston.
Some few years earlier, Dennison had visited friends in Springfield,
Massachusetts, and while there he was taken to one of the interesting show-
places of the town—the Springfield Arsenal. As he made his slow progress
through the great rifle factory, he marveled at the wonderful machinery and

the system which had originated in the brain of Eli Whitney nearly half a
century before; Whitney was dead and gone, but his works still lived.
Dennison returned to Boston, fired with an ambition to apply the Whitney
system and methods of rifle-making to the manufacture of watches. He
brooded over the scheme for years, constructing a pasteboard model of his
imaginary watch factory and planning in detail its organization.
Then occurred a meeting that was to make history—a meeting marking the
first step in founding a great American industry and wresting from Europe
and Great Britain the watch-making monopoly which they had continuously
held since the days of the "Nuremburg Egg." Dennison met Howard, and
the contact of the two minds was like the meeting of flint and steel.
Dennison shared Howard's belief that watch-parts could be made better and
more accurately by the use of machines. He had the watch-making
experience and Howard the mechanical skill to design the new machinery.
One may imagine how the two young men inspired each other. They had the
ideas; all they now needed was the capital and this was supplied in 1848 by
Mr. Samuel Curtis, who backed them to the extent of twenty thousand
dollars.
Dennison immediately went abroad to study methods in England and
Switzerland and came back more than ever convinced of the soundness of
their own ideas.
"I have examined," said he, "watches made by a man whose reputation at
this moment is far beyond that of any other watchmaker in Great Britain
and have found in them such workmanship as I should blush to have it
supposed had passed from under my hands in our own lower grade of work.
Of course I do not mean to say that there is not work in these watches of the
highest grade possible, but errors do creep in and are allowed to pass the
hands of competent examiners. And it needs but slight acquaintance with
our art to discover that the lower grade of foreign watches are hardly as
mechanically correct in their construction as a common wheelbarrow."

French Enamel Case, about 1800

Austrian Lyre-shaped Watch, 1770

French Musical Repeater Watch, Gold Case,
Richly Enameled and Set with Pearls
Presented by Napoleon to Murat in 1800

French, about 1800

Beetle Shaped Watch, about 1800

Guitar Shaped Watch
Swiss, about 1800

French Combination of Watch, Snuff Box and
Music Box, playing several tunes,
about 1700

Eighteenth Century Watches
Reached the extreme of elaboration and
costliness, but were not always equally
successful as time keepers. In the collections
of the Metropolitan Museum.
On his return, in 1850, he and Howard established themselves in a small
factory in Roxbury, under the name of the American Horologe Company.
And that little factory was the foundation of what is now the great
establishment of the Waltham Watch Company, the first and hence the
oldest watch company in America, and the parent concern of most of the
rest.
It was perhaps at this time that an employee, one P. S. Bartlett, returned to
his home town on a visit and was asked by his old neighbors what he had
been doing.
"I am working," said he, "for a company which makes seven complete
watches in a day." Great was the merriment at this reply. "Why, where on
earth could you sell seven watches a day?" they shouted.
With the advent of the factory, the real troubles of Dennison and Howard
began. It is worth while to glance for a moment at the problem which lay
before them, if only to appreciate its difficulty. The old plan was to have a
model watch made by hand by a master workman. This watch was then
taken apart and its separate parts distributed for reproduction by a multitude

of specialized workers involving perhaps some forty or fifty minor trades.
These parts, hand-made after a hand-made model, were then returned to the
expert who assembled and adjusted them. At the worst, this resulted in
gross error; at the best, in individual variation. A part from one watch could
not be expected to fit and work accurately in another, although the two were
supposed to be alike in all their parts.
The new idea was first to lay out the whole design on paper and then to
make the various parts by machinery according to the exact design. It was
supposed that a machine making one part would duplicate that part
repeatedly without variation; that in so far as the machines themselves were
accurate, the parts produced would necessarily be interchangeable; that any
set of parts could therefore be assembled without fitting or alteration. The
finished watch, it was assumed, would require adjustment only.
Theoretically, this idea was correct; practically, it could not be perfectly
carried out, and the results did not fulfil the hopes of the manufacturers. In
the first place, there were not in existence any machines of the required
delicacy and precision; every one must first be invented, then designed,
then made, and finally adjusted for practical operation. Even so, and
notwithstanding the great mechanical achievements of the Waltham
Company, the results never succeeded in realizing the dreams of Howard
and Dennison, of absolute interchangeability of parts. It remained for the
Ingersoll organization, many years later, to develop such a factory system.
Before Howard and Dennison could make a single watch, therefore, they
had to invent all the mechanism, and themselves build and install every
invention. Moreover, several of the processes had to be worked out from the
ground up. There was nobody in America who understood watch-gilding,
for example, or who could make dials or jewels.
Thus they set to work developing the machinery as fast as they could do so,
and imported such parts as they themselves could not yet make. It was a
staggering task and a discouraging devourer of capital. "I do not think," said
Dennison many years later, "there were seven times in the seven years we
were together that we had money enough to pay all our employees at the
time their wages were due. Very often we would find ourselves without any
cash on hand, but Mr. Howard would manage some way to produce enough
to tide over with."

The two men made a perfect team, eager to give each other credit, and each
having unbounded loyalty and confidence in the other and in their
enterprise. But, curiously enough, it was Howard, the artist and dreamer,
who seems to have developed into the business man of the two, in addition
to being the inventor and engineer, whereas Dennison, the expert watch-
repairer, became the designer and originator of plans. It was said of him
long afterward that there was probably never an idea in American watch-
making that had not at some time passed through Mr. Dennison's
resourceful mind. He is known to many as the "Father of the American
Watch Industry," although he insisted that Howard deserved the title as
much if not more than he. Dennison schemed out what was to be done,
while Howard found the money and invented the machinery with which to
do it.
Their first model, an eight-day watch, was Dennison's idea. It was found to
be impracticable and was soon abandoned in favor of a one-day model. The
name of the company had to be changed, because it did not find favor with
some of the English firms from whom they bought certain parts. They
called it the "Warren Manufacturing Company" for a time, and their first
few watches were marked with this name. Later on, they moved to a new
factory at Waltham and incorporated under the name of the Waltham
Improvement Company. It was while the act for its incorporation was
before the Massachusetts legislature that some wag there produced the
couplet:
"A Waltham' 'patent' watch, which ere it goes
Besides the 'hands' must have the 'ayes' and 'noes."
All this time, the tools and machinery were giving trouble. There were
innumerable difficulties. For example, New England workmen objected to
cutting the pinion-leaves because they were shaped like a bishop's miter.
And financial pressure was always upon them. The building was one of the
earliest attempts at concrete construction, and was far from stable in stormy
weather. Mr. Hull, afterward foreman in the dial-room, said: "Often in those
days we would jump from our stools when we felt something jar, for fear
the building would fall down. Somehow, it never did."
In 1854 the name was changed again, this time to the American Watch
Company. Incidentally, Mr. Dennison took his place among the large and

honorable company of inventors who have been called insane. He earned
that title by saying that they would eventually make as many as fifty
watches a day. The company now makes between two thousand and three
thousand a day.
Just as they were on the point of a richly deserved success, the panic of
1857 drove the young company into bankruptcy. The plant was purchased
by Royal E. Robbins, of the firm of Robbins & Appleton, watch importers.
Howard went back to the old factory at Roxbury, taking with him a few
trained workmen, and patiently started all over again. He succeeded, at last,
in producing really fine watches, although in small numbers; and his new
business, as we shall see later, developed into the E. Howard Clock
Company, and practically abandoned the manufacture of watches.
Meanwhile, the Waltham factory, under good business management and
with Dennison as its superintendent, was safely steered past the financial
rocks and shoals of the period, and began gradually to reap the reward of its
less fortunate early efforts.
It was the Civil War, with its great military demand for watches, which first
set the Waltham Company squarely upon its feet by justifying quantity
production. A dividend of five per cent was declared in 1860; and one of
one hundred and fifty per cent in 1866, the short-lived Nashua Watch
Company having meanwhile been absorbed. Since that date its name has
been twice changed—first, to the American Waltham Watch Company, and
then to the Waltham Watch Company, which is now its title.
At the present day, the Waltham Company employs nearly four thousand
people and produces about sixty-eight thousand complete watch-
movements a month, or over three-quarters of a million a year.
This output is made possible only through the extensive employment of
automatic machines, all of which have been invented and manufactured at
the Waltham factory. Even now it is not possible to buy watch-making
machinery ready-made in the open market; it is all "special" work, designed
and often built by the watch manufacturers themselves. And the
development of this great industry, employing, at first, crude devices
operated for the most part by hand-power, to the complex automatic
mechanism which seems to act almost with human intelligence, has been a
marvelous achievement.

The company now makes ten different sizes of regular movements, in more
than a hundred different grades and styles. Of these every part is made in
the Waltham factory. It was the first establishment in the world in which all
parts of a watch were made by machinery and under the same roof. And its
success revolutionized the methods of watch-making not only in America
but, to a less degree, in all parts of the world. A prominent London
watchmaker who went through the plant in the early period of its success
said to his colleagues: "On leaving the factory, I felt that the manufacture of
watches on the old plan was gone." And the name passed into literature
when Emerson, describing a successful type of man, said, "He is put
together like a Waltham watch."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Checkered History
ne of those mental marvels who can play fifteen simultaneous games of

O chess, blindfolded, might be able to form a complete idea of the
American watch-making industry in the years that followed the Civil
War; all that the ordinary mind can gain is a bewildering impression of
change and confusion, with companies springing up, and merging or
disappearing, all over the industrial map. Inventions were as thick as
blackberries in August and, to investors, as thorny as their stems. Countless
revolutionary ideas in watch-making revolved briefly—few evolved, and
capitalists, large and small, learned the sobering lessons of experience, as
capitalists ever have and ever will.

"Quantity Production" in 1850
When P. S. Bartlett boasted that his company
was making seven watches a day, his friends
laughed, "Why, where could you sell seven
watches a day?"

With it all, certain points seem to stand out as clearly defined—among them
the fact that watch-production appealed strongly to the public mind at a
time when the nation, galvanized into intense activity by the great conflict,
was entering an era of extraordinary self-organization. This is, of course,

significant. The nation's time as well as its forests, mines, and other
resources, must be a factor in the growth of public wealth, and this could
not be unless it were widely and accurately measured, which, in turn,
implied the universal use of the watch.
The later history of American watch-making is, therefore, a story of the
formation of many companies, the failure of most, and survival in the case
of comparatively few. In the sense of being founded by men whose
experience had been gained at Waltham, the Waltham Company was more
or less the parent of the majority. Of the failures, it may roughly and
broadly be stated that the general trouble was most often a lack of
cooperation between technical watch-making skill and business
management.
Of the occasional successes due, on the other hand, to perfect harmony
between these two factors, the Elgin National Watch Company, established
at Elgin, Illinois, in 1864, was one of the first. Its officials and promoters
were not watchmakers but business men—a group of Western capitalists
who organized the company at the suggestion of a few trained men from
Waltham, to whose technical experience and knowledge they gave entire
liberty of action from the first. This combination of Western enterprise and
Eastern mechanical skill was a great and immediate success. Within six
years from its incorporation, the Elgin Company had built its factory,
designed and made its own machinery, and marketed forty-two thousand
watches. It is said to be the only American watch company which has paid
dividends from the beginning. And yet this achievement cannot be traced to
anything strikingly distinctive either in the policy or in the product. It was a
case of doing rapidly and easily, with vast previous experience to build
upon, what the parent company had so long strived to accomplish, and of
doing this honestly and well. In a small way, it was like the rapid growth of
democratic principles in America, having, as it were, the British
commonwealth of a thousand years on which to base itself.
The period of the development of American watch-making was also the
period of the rapid and enormous expansion of railroads. The two were
naturally related, in that railroading demands the constant use of a great
number of watches, while its progress in punctuality and speed is in direct
proportion to the supply of reliable timekeepers. Precision is here the great
essential; every passenger must have the means of being on hand in time in

order not to miss his train. But what is of far greater importance, railroad
men must know and keep the exact time not alone for their own protection
but in order that they may protect and safeguard the lives of those who are
entrusted to their care.
Most of our great inventions and improvements can be traced to some
pressing human need. Many of them, unfortunately, are delayed until some
great catastrophe shows the need. It required a disastrous wreck to bring
home to the railroads and make clear the necessity for absolute accuracy in
the timepieces of their employees.
In the year 1891 two trains on the Lake Shore Railroad met in head-on
collision near Kipton, Ohio, killing the two engineers and several railway
mail-clerks. In the investigation which followed, it was disclosed that the
watches of the engineers differed by four minutes. The watch which was at
fault had always been accurate and so its owner took it for granted that it
always would be. But tiny particles of dust and soot find ways of seeping
into the most carefully protected works of a watch, and every watch should
be examined and cleaned occasionally. So it was with the engineer's watch.
A speck of coal dust, perhaps, had caused his watch to stop for a few
minutes and then the jolting of the engine had probably started it running
again. That little speck of dust and those few lost minutes cost human lives.
This wreck occurred not many miles from Cleveland, Ohio, then and now
the home of Webb C. Ball, a jeweler, who as a watch expert, was a witness
in the investigation which followed. His interest thus aroused, he worked
out a plan which provided for a rigid and continuous system of railroad
watch inspection. The plan which he then proposed is now in operation on
practically every railroad in the country.
A railroad watch must keep accurate time within thirty seconds a week, and
is likely to be condemned if its variation exceeds that amount in a month; it
must conform to certain specifications of design and workmanship which
are only put into movements of a fairly high grade. And the railroad man
must provide himself with such a timepiece and maintain it in proper
condition, subject to frequent and regular inspection by the railroad's
official inspector. There is thus a compulsory demand for watches of a
definite quality and performance at a reasonable price.

Expressly to meet this, the Hamilton Watch Company, of Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, was organized in 1892, the year after the wreck which started
this reform. This company therefore represents an enterprise founded for a
specific purpose and concentrating upon a certain specialized demand,
although this does not mean that it is the only company which caters to the
needs of the railroad man. All of the great companies produce timekeepers
of the highest precision for railroad use, but the Hamilton Company has
devoted itself more particularly to supplying this one field.
The Gruen Watch Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio, is typical of still another
line of endeavor—the beautifying and refining of watch-cases and watch-
works. Its founder, Dietrich Gruen, was a Swiss master watchmaker. He
came to America, as a young man, in 1876, married here, and established
the international industry which bears his name. It might be said that his
watch is not an American product, as the Gruen movements are made at
Madre-Biel, in Switzerland, and then sent over to America to be cased,
adjusted, and marketed. Perhaps the most notable contribution of this
company to the watchmaking industry was to inaugurate the modern thin
type of watch. This was evolved by Frederick, the son of Dietrich Gruen,
and was made possible by the inverting of the third wheel of the watch, so
that the whole train runs in much less space than was previously required.
These four companies are by no means the only successful ones, but they
do typify the general trend of development of the American watch industry
from 1850 until near the end of the nineteenth century, when a new and
even greater era in the history of timekeeping was inaugurated. The story of
this development will be considered in later chapters. In the period then
closed, however, the ideal of Dennison and Howard, which most people
then regarded as an impossibility, was realized to a degree which they
themselves would never have thought possible. Dennison died in 1898 and
Howard in 1904.
Although watch-making is the creation of European genius and was rooted
in European experience, with boundless capital at its command and carried
on in communities trained for generations in the craft, it is in this country
that it has been brought to its fullest modern development. The census
figures, while incomplete and somewhat misleading, are expressive of the
amount of growth and of its nature. According to these figures there were in
1869 thirty-seven watch companies in the United States, employing

eighteen hundred and sixteen wage earners, or an average of less than fifty
workmen; and their combined product was valued at less than three million
dollars. In 1914, the last normal year before the Great War, there were but
fifteen such companies; the law of the survival of the fittest had been
operating. But these fifteen employed an average of over eight hundred
people, or twelve thousand three hundred and ninety in all, and the
combined value of their product was stated as over fourteen million dollars.
These figures are far below reality in that they do not include the large
volume of watches produced in clock factories.
American watch-making is typical of the difference between the American
and European industry in the nineteenth century. Here a complete watch is
produced in one factory, while in England, Switzerland and France most
establishments specialize in the manufacture of particular parts and these
parts are then assembled in other factories. Some fifty different trades there
are working separately to produce the parts. And the manufacturer, whose
work is chiefly that of finishing and assembling, takes a large profit for
inspection and for the prestige of his name.
By the American system, a thousand watches are produced proportionately
more cheaply than a dozen; and a thousand of uniform model more cheaply
than a like number of various sizes and designs. Automatic machines tend
to economy of labor and uniformity of excellence. The saving begins with
the cost of material and ends with the ease and quickness of repairs due to
the standardization of parts.
Lord Grimthorpe said: "There can be no doubt that this is the best as well as
the cheapest way of making machines which require precision. Although
labor is dearer in America than here, their machinery enables them to
undersell English watches of the same quality."
It now remained for American ingenuity and enterprise to level the ramparts
of special privilege in the world of time-telling by producing an accurate
and practical watch in sufficient quantity and at a price so low as to place it
within the reach of all.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"The Watch That Wound Forever"
he most important development in any affair is naturally the one which

T concerns the greatest number of people. In the United States, it is the
people who count and nothing can be considered wholly American
which does not concern the mass of the population. We have already seen
how watch-movements were brought to a high degree of accuracy, and have
followed some of the steps by which the industry was developed in the
United States, but there remained one great step to be taken, and that was
the putting of an accurate watch within the financial reach of almost every
person. The way in which this was brought about was thoroughly American.
In 1875, Jason R. Hopkins, of Washington, D. C., after many months of
patient labor, perfected the model of a watch which he thought could be
constructed in quantities for fifty cents each. He secured a patent on his
model, and with Edward A. Locke, of Boston, and W. D. Colt, of
Washington, sought to interest the Benedict & Burnham Manufacturing
Company, of Waterbury, Connecticut, in its manufacture.
Failing in this, Locke abandoned further effort so far as the Hopkins' model
was concerned. Hopkins, however, continued, and finally succeeded in
enlisting the active support and financial resources of W. B. Fowle, a
gentleman of wealth and leisure, who owned a fine estate at Auburndale,
Massachusetts. This led to the formation of the Auburndale Watch
Company. Within a few years, Fowle had sunk his entire fortune of more
than $250,000 in the enterprise, and the Hopkins watch had proved a
complete failure. In 1883 both Fowle and the Watch Company made
assignments.
There are many who still remember the great Centennial Exposition at
Philadelphia in 1876, celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the
declaration of American Independence. Those who were there may recall
the interesting exhibit of a huge steam-engine—at least, it seemed huge at
that time—and, in a glass case near by, a tiny engine—so tiny that it could
be completely covered by a small thimble. This midget steam engine, with

its boiler, governor, and pumps, was just as complete in all of its parts as
was the big engine. Three drops of water would fill its boiler. It was a
striking example of mechanical skill and fineness of workmanship, for it
had been made under a watchmaker's microscope with jeweler's tools.
The most interesting thing about this little engine was that, unknown to its
designer, it heralded the dawn of Democracy in the Kingdom of Time-
telling, just as it then was helping to celebrate the birth of American
freedom. In the spring of 1877, Edward A. Locke, of Boston, who two years
before, as we have seen, had been interested in the Hopkins' watch, visited
the neighboring city of Worcester, and while strolling along the main street,
in a leisurely manner, he chanced to glance in the window of a watch-
repairer's shop. There he saw the tiny engine which had excited so much
wonder and admiration at the Philadelphia exposition the year before.
For many months, Locke and his friend George Merritt, of Brooklyn, New
York, had been thinking and dreaming of the possibility of supplying the
long-felt and rapidly-growing need for a low-priced watch—a pocket-
timepiece that could be sold for three or four dollars. The cheapest watch in
America at that time cost ten or twelve. They had searched in vain for a
watchmaker who was ingenious or courageous enough, or both, to attempt
the making of such a timepiece.
Fascinated by the marvelous little engine, Locke stepped into the shop and
spoke to the lone workman at the bench near the window. This obscure and
humble watch repairer was D. A. A. Buck, the proprietor of the shop and
designer of the engine, who was soon to gain renown as the inventor of the
famous Waterbury watch.
For the sum of one hundred dollars Buck agreed to study the problem, and,
if possible, design for Locke a watch which would meet his requirements.
Day and night, for many weeks, he labored at this task, and finally
submitted a model. It was not satisfactory.
Worn by his labors and disappointed by his failure, he fell ill. Some days
later, Mrs. Buck sought out Locke and joyfully told him that her husband
had worked out a new design which he believed would correct the defects
of the former model and that, as soon as he recovered, he would begin work
upon it. Within a few months he had completed a second model. This time
he was successful.

Then began the struggle of Locke and his associates to interest capital in the
new enterprise. Most of the preliminary funds and factory space were
provided by the Benedict & Burnham Manufacturing Company, a brass
manufacturing concern at Waterbury, Connecticut, and the predecessor of
the present Waterbury Clock Company. Thus the new watch came to be
known as the Waterbury.
Within the next twenty-eight months many thousands of dollars had been
raised and expended before a single watch could be turned out for sale. It
was not until 1880 that the Waterbury Watch Company was finally
incorporated and ready for business. Then the factory proudly produced its
first thousand watches. They were perfectly good-looking watches, but they
had one important weakness—they would not run, because, as it was found,
the sheets of brass used in stamping out the wheels had an unfortunate
grain, and the wheels would not remain true. Another thousand were made
with this defect corrected. This time most of the watches would keep time,
but there still was a large percentage of "stoppers." After more study,
experiment, and expense, the product was improved until only about ten per
cent of the watches refused to run, and the Waterbury watch was really on
the market.
It was a wonderfully simple piece of mechanism, very different from the
ordinary watch. The whole works turned round inside of the case once
every hour, carrying the hour-hand with them. The mainspring was coiled
round the outside of the movement, so that the case formed a barrel, and
was wound by the stem. It had the old duplex escapement of the days of
Tompion and the dial was printed on paper, covered with celluloid and
glued to the plate. It had only fifty-eight parts, kept time surprisingly well,
was not much to look at, but was sold at the then unheard-of low price of
four dollars.
It was put on the market with real Yankee ingenuity. Some of us remember
when Waterbury watches were given away with suits of clothes, and the
pride with which, as youngsters, we exhibited our first watches thus
obtained to our playmates who were less fortunate. The nine-foot
mainspring required unlimited winding, which was one of its chief joys, and
our friends often solicited the privilege of helping in the operation. Some of
the more ingenious among us held the corrugated stem against the side of a

fence and made the watch wind itself by running along the fence's length,
while other children looked on enviously.
In spite of the disadvantage of the time necessary for winding, perhaps in
part because of it, the Waterbury watch became famous the world over and
reached a very large sale for its day. It was more or less of a freak
contrivance. People spoke of it with a smile. Minstrels opened their
performances by saying, "We come from Waterbury, the land of eternal
spring"; and there is a story of a Waterbury owner in a sleeping-car,
winding until his arm ached and then passing it to a total stranger, saying,
"Here, you wind this for a while," with the result that the stranger placed a
large order for Waterbury watches to be sold by his agency in China.
At the time that the Waterbury watch was well established, the world had
advanced to a point fairly approximating the life of to-day. All the marvels
of invention which had lifted so much of the earth's manual labor from the
shoulders of mankind and which had been expected to shorten working-
hours and to cheapen products until the standards of living of all classes
would be raised through the possession of beneficial products inexpensively
produced—these had gone far toward establishing the factory system.
Machinery had come into vogue in place of hand labor. The steam-engine,
the sewing-machine, the railway, the steamboat, the cotton-gin, the
threshing-machine and the harvester, were indispensable aids. Photography
and typewriting were novelties no longer, and the phonograph was
becoming familiar. Electricity had taken its place as one of man's most
valuable servants, able to transmit his messages, furnish him with power,
and turn his night into day. These are but a few of the countless
improvements that had contributed to the rapid rise of this country as a
manufacturing nation instead of one chiefly agricultural.
Millions had already found employment in the factories, the transportation
systems, and other collective-labor establishments. Schools had multiplied
throughout the country. Trains, for the most part, were run on schedule
time. Business offices, accompanying the development of the great
industrial concerns, employed thousands. The department store was
beginning to appear. Public-utility organizations and government
departments were growing complex and extensive.

Thus, in every direction a stirring impetus was being given toward those
intricate modern conditions which depend upon the watch. The lives of
nearly all people were beginning to be touched by affairs that demanded
common punctuality a number of times every day—the hour of opening
factory, school, office or store, the keeping of appointments, the closing of
banks and of mails, and the departure of trains. The times were bursting
with need for a closer watch on time. From the industrial president to the
common laborer and school-child the pressure of modern life, with its
demand for punctuality, was making itself increasingly felt.
Yet, strangely enough, watches were still regarded as luxuries. It was not
yet realized that they belonged among the implements which the daily life
required of all. The notion still held that the watch was the mark of the
aristocrat—a piece of jewelry rather than an article of utility, a thing more
for display than for use. And the prices of good watches, according to the
standards of the day, were such as to perpetuate the idea.
It is no wonder then that, in spite of its crude characteristics, the low-priced
Waterbury watch attained a considerable sale. A watch was a novelty, an
uncommon possession among average people, and anything approximating
a real watch was assured of a large sale if within reach of the ordinary
purse. Therefore, the commercial failure of the Waterbury Watch Company
involves something more than a mere business failure. Here is something
which textbook economists may well undertake to explain, since the article
was good, the need unsupplied, the competition feeble, and the profit
satisfactory. The Waterbury watch enjoyed an initial success but, in spite of
satisfactory quality, its sale gradually fell away, until, notwithstanding
several refinancings and changes of management, undeserved failure
ultimately overtook the first low-priced watch-venture. It was not the
manufacturing problems, such as had overcome Howard and had sorely
tried Dennison, but the problems of distribution which were the undoing of
the Waterbury Company, and here the importance and power of the
middleman stand out in an instructive way.
The conditions of the age demanded a cheap watch. Things to come could
not eventuate except through the ability of everyone to measure his
minutes. Almost from its first announcement, the Waterbury sprang into
demand, but later succumbed to false policies of sales. Eagerness for the

large and easy orders, which were momentarily attractive but finally fatal,
spelled ruin.
When first put out, the watch was sold through stores at a very moderate
price and proved to be such a sensation that it suggested itself to ingenious
merchants as a trade-bringer when offered as a premium with other goods.
Sam Lloyd, the famous puzzle-man, was among those who saw this
possibility and he devised a scheme which resulted in the giving-away of
hundreds of thousands of Waterburys; it consisted of puzzles printed on
cards. These puzzles were so simple and yet so cleverly designed that while
anyone could solve them, each thought himself a genius for his success in
doing so. Lloyd's idea was to take his puzzles to clothing stores all over the
country and sell them with watches, in order that those dealers might
distribute the puzzles all over town, together with an announcement of a
guessing-contest. Each successful contestant, upon return of the puzzle with
its solution, was privileged to buy a suit of clothes and get a Waterbury
watch with it free of charge.
Such was the magic of a watch in those days that the Waterbury boomed the
business of hundreds of clothiers, who, as in nearly all something-for-
nothing schemes, were careful to add more than the cost of the watch to the
price of the suit. Nevertheless the idea took so well that Lloyd spread it into
Europe, China, and other parts of the world. Thus, the Waterbury watch
became a familiar object in many lands. Adaptations of the scheme, applied
to other wares, were carried out by him and by others until giveaway
propositions became the main channel of distribution for these watches. For
a time, such methods flourished and the regular trade of ordinary watch-
dealers correspondingly languished. But, finally, the scheme-idea lost its
novelty and pulling power. People would not forever buy clothes in order to
get watches. In the process, the Waterbury name had become a byword for
tricks in all trades. Shoddy clothes at all-wool prices had become associated
with it in people's minds. They stopped buying these watches in ordinary
stores because others "gave" them away. Regular dealers cut the prices to
get rid of their stocks, and this led to further demoralization because
customers never knew whether or not they were buying at the bottom price.
Dealers could make no money on them under such market conditions and,
because of this and of their shady association with give-away deals, the
Waterbury name became a stench in the nostrils of the legitimate trade.

Thus, when the scheme-trade died away and the company again turned its
attention to the watch-dealers whom it had forgotten in the flush of its easy
success, it found no welcome. It had forsaken its source of steady customers
and was now forsaken in return. After floundering about in several further
reversals of trade policy and causing the loss of further investment for its
backers, the Waterbury name was abandoned and the company reorganized
as the New England Watch Company. As such it ventured into new fields of
watch manufacture and offered an elaborate variety of small and fancy
watches and cases, and numerous models, sizes, and styles of movements
sold on vacillating marketing policies. Never did it attain a genuinely sound
footing, however, for it vacated its field of fundamental and distinctive
usefulness, viz., the production of a reliable, low-priced, simple watch, to
meet the advancing requirements of its day; it had gone back to the view-
point of the watch as an ostentatious or ornamental bit of vanity. Hence the
old Waterbury business was compelled to close its doors, and in the fall of
1914, the first year of the Great War, was bought out at a receiver's sale by a
firm who had replaced it in the field of supplying watches for the masses.
This firm rededicated the organization to its original mission, modernized
its mechanical equipment, and revived the Waterbury name after a lapse of
twenty years, until to-day, through the employment of judicious sales-
methods, the factory is more successful than ever it was in its earlier days.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"The Watch That Made the Dollar Famous"
next development is so typically American that it is difficult to
T
he
picture it as occurring in any other country.
Heretofore, the history of timepieces had been that of an easily traceable
evolution, for each of its steps had grown naturally out of those before it,
and the various improvements had been made by mechanics trained in the
craft. Yet now, strange to relate, two young men from a Michigan farm,
with no mechanical training, entered the field almost in a casual manner,
and in less than a generation not only became the world's largest
manufacturers of watches but effected the most radical development in the
whole story of telling time—involving, as it did, the introduction of
interchangeable parts, quantity-production, and a low price.
These results might seem at first, to be due to a matter of accidental good
fortune. On the contrary, they were an example of evolution quite as logical
as any that had preceded and were perhaps even more significant. The
whole development came as the direct product of observation, analysis,
initiative, perseverance, and hard work—the element of good luck being
conspicuously absent.
All history gives evidence of the occasional need of a new impulse derived
from outside, and bringing with it a fresh view-point. There seems to be a
tendency in human enterprise for any development after a time to lose its
original rate of speed and to spend itself in complexities. The people who
have brought it about appear to lose their power to see things simply and in
a big way; and, on the contrary, they grow technical and occupy themselves
with minor details. Whereupon the progress of development becomes
slower and slower, and threatens to stop entirely. Then over and over again,
there is the record of the advent of some fresh new force from an
unexpected direction which restores youth and vigor.
In the last decade of the nineteenth century, watch-making seemed ready for
such an impulse. As we have already seen, it had long been developing

from within along technical and professional lines. Excellent and costly
timepieces that were marvels of accurate mechanism had been produced.
That part of its work had been well done, but the industry was in danger of
losing its human touch. Watches were being viewed more as articles of
manufacture and merchandise than as of wide-spread human service in
meeting a general public need.
In a sense, therefore, the industry was unconsciously waiting the coming of
a non-technical man who knew the public at first hand and understood
people's requirements, who was not fettered by tradition, who had a vision
of universal marketing and distribution, and who was not held back by a
fore-knowledge of difficulties. It was exactly this vision which Robert H.
Ingersoll had of the industry and he developed it with the assistance first of
his brother, Charles H. and later of his nephew, William H. He did not
"discover" the dollar watch, as many think, but grew toward it during the
course of a dozen years.
It came about, as already stated, in a manner that was typically American.
Young Ingersoll left his father's farm near Lansing, Michigan, in 1879, at
the age of nineteen, and went to New York to seek his fortune. He was
entirely without technical training save in farming, but he had a
considerable first-hand knowledge of the needs and desires of what Lincoln
called the "common people." Finding employment for a time, he saved One
Hundred and Sixty Dollars, and, with this large capital, started in business
for himself in the manufacture and sale of rubber stamps. Before long he
was able to send back to Michigan for his younger brother, Charles H.
Being of an inventive turn of mind, he devised a toy typewriter which
attained a considerable sale as a dollar article. This was followed by a
patented pencil, a dollar sewing-machine, a patent key-ring and other
novelties of his own creation.
In the course of time, the products of other manufacturers were added to the
list. Thus the brothers soon found themselves with an embryo
manufacturing and wholesale jobbing business. The business grew, and the
next development was that of a mail-order department. In this branch they
were pioneers and preceded by some years the famous mail-order houses of
Chicago and elsewhere. Their catalog ran into editions of millions of
copies. Next, the Ingersolls became pioneers in another sales-plan. They
developed the chain-stores idea, starting with a retail specialty store in New

York, and following it with six others. Incidentally, they found themselves
among the largest wholesale and retail dealers in the country in bicycles and
bicycle supplies.
All of this was a strange but none the less effective preparation for watch-
making and the marketing of watches by millions. Robert Ingersoll, who
had remained in the selling and promoting end of the business, knew little
about watches, but since he was constantly engaged in traveling about the
country and in talking with merchants and others, he was gaining a great
fund of knowledge as to human needs and market possibilities.
Presently he became convinced that his business, in spite of its prosperity,
lacked something vital. He grew dissatisfied with handling a succession of
unimportant novelties. It began to dawn upon his mind that these things
were hardly worth while as a subject for a business, since they satisfied
only passing fancies on the part of the public. He must find something
which was really worth while, something which filled a real human need on
a large scale and yet in a new way. If this something could be found, and the
incredibly large buying power of the great American public could be
focused upon it, there was hardly any limit to the business which would
result.
When this belief had crystallized in the form of a definite conclusion, he
began at once to search for the "big idea." The "big idea" had long been
waiting for him to reach this state of mind. It had been looking him in the
face for many days had he but been ready to perceive it.
On the wall of his room in a Brooklyn boarding-house there hung a very
small "Bee" clock. It was unobtrusive and apparently unimportant. He had
glanced at it hundreds of times with no thought beyond that of learning the
time. Suddenly, it ceased to be a clock and became an open door into the
future. Its ticking became articulate with a new meaning.

A Glimpse of a Giant Industry
This picture shows one corner of the huge
plants which produce twenty thousand Ingersoll
watches a day.

"Everyone wishes to tell time," it said. "There is not one of the millions
who crowd the cities, travel the highways, or spread over the country
districts, who does not wish repeatedly during his waking-hours to know
what time it is. Sometimes he is in sight of a clock, but more often he is not.
Here and there is a man with a watch in his pocket. That man has a chance

to be efficient; but good watches cost money, and most people cannot afford
them. Here am I, a tiny little ticking clock; I am a good timekeeper and I am
cheap. Make me a little smaller, sell me for a dollar, and you can put the
time into everyone's pocket."
At this point, the non-technical man, who knew nothing about watches, but
who understood human needs, realized that something had happened; he
pondered deeply and began to investigate. He took the little clock to a
machinist in Ann Street, New York, and together they studied the possibility
of reducing it in thickness and diameter. Presently it was discovered that
both the New Haven and the Waterbury Clock Companies had already
produced articles that embodied these conditions. This somewhat checked
enthusiasm until it was recalled that neither of these products was an
especial factor in the time-telling field. The manufacturers had merely made
mechanisms; they had not grasped the Big Idea of universal service.
The timepiece of the Waterbury Company was the smaller, and Robert
Ingersoll decided to test his mail-order market, buying first, one thousand
clock-watches at eighty-five cents each, and afterward contracting for ten
thousand more. These articles were offered in the mail-order catalog for
1892 at a dollar each, for the sake of price-uniformity with the other dollar
specialties upon which the firm was concentrating. This was done, however,
in a small way. It was not desired to sell too many on such an unprofitable
margin, but merely to test the dollar-watch idea, hoping that manufacturing
charges might ultimately be brought down through quantity production.
These so-called "watches" must not be confused with the Waterbury watch;
that, as already described, had been the output of another company. The
"watches" marketed by the Ingersolls and bearing their name were in reality
thick, noisy, sturdy little pocket-clocks, wound from the back. They were
crude and clumsy affairs compared with present-day styles but were,
nevertheless, reliable timekeepers.
The public responded to the idea of dollar watches, although these proved
to sell faster in gilt cases than in nickel, and still faster when a five-cent gilt
chain was added. The next year, came the World's Fair in Chicago and the
odd little mechanism with an appropriate design stamped upon its cover
attracted some attention from the visitors.

Thus was born the Ingersoll watch, although it bore slight resemblance to
the watch of to-day. This is due to the fact that an immediate policy of
experiment and improvement was inaugurated. During these changes,
however, several points remained fixed. One of these was that the watch
must be in no respect a plaything, but a practical accurate timekeeper, not
liable easily to get out of order. The second was the definite association
with the price of one dollar, so that it became possible to refer to it
humorously as "the watch that made the dollar famous;" and the third was
that it should have a sturdy ruggedness of construction that would defy
ordinary hard usage.
Each of these points had its social value—that of the last-named being the
fact that the dollar price put the possession of a real timepiece within the
reach of multitudes who were engaged in forms of activity wherein a
delicate timepiece would be apt to get out of order.
The Ingersolls soon became convinced that they had a worthy object for
promotion, and they did not entertain the slightest doubt as to the existence
of a waiting public. There passed before their minds a picture of the
millions of farm-boys who did not know when it was time to come into
dinner, of the millions of working-men who had nothing to guide them in
reaching the factory on time, of millions of clerks and school-children and
of still other millions comprising the bulk of American homes where more
good timepieces were needed.
Their problem, therefore, resolved itself into two main divisions—those of
manufacture and those of sale. The manufacturing end involved a contract
with the great plant of the Waterbury Clock Company, by which this factory
was to produce the goods according to the specifications and under the
name, trade-mark, and patents of the Ingersolls. This arrangement continues
to this day, but has been supplemented, as the line has become more
extended, by the acquirement of two factories of their own, one in
Waterbury, Connecticut, and one in Trenton, New Jersey. To-day the three
plants produce an aggregate of about twenty thousand watches a day.
Before such manufacturing results could be obtained, however, there were
many structural problems to be solved. It was not so easy as it sounds to
build a practical and accurate watch within the narrow limits of a dollar and
still leave a profit for both the manufacturer and dealer.

The solution began with the adoption of the "lantern-pinion," but the
principal difficulty was that which had baffled both Howard and Dennison
—the problem of producing the extremely minute separate watch-parts in
large quantities by machinery, and yet with such exquisite precision that all
parts of one kind should be absolutely interchangeable. By dint of
unwearied patience and much scientific research, this problem was finally
solved, and it is said that Henry Ford got his idea of quantity-production
from the manufacture of the Ingersoll watch. Incidentally, it was
demonstrated that low production-costs carry with them high wages. In the
field of watchmaking, no element was more necessary than the skill of well-
paid workers.
In the meantime, the public was waiting, but it did not know that it was
waiting. It was going about its business quite unaware that mechanical and
manufacturing problems were being solved in its behalf. There were no
eager millions standing about demanding watches in order that their lives
might be run more closely upon an efficient schedule. Therefore,
simultaneously with the consideration of mechanical and manufacturing
problems came those of sale, which will be discussed in the next chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Putting Fifty Million Watches Into Service
this were purely a story of the development of timepieces as
I
f
mechanisms, there would be little to add to the preceding chapter, save to
detail the refinements and improvements by which a cheap, clumsy, but
reliable watch gradually discarded its defects, while retaining its virtues,
and the manner in which it developed into a variety of styles and sizes.
Essentially, however, this is a story of Man and Time, of human needs as
served by timepieces. The most perfect piece of mechanism in a showcase
is like a stove without a fire; it is a mere possibility of service, whose value
does not begin until it is set to work.
We have arrived, then, at a time when a small percentage of the total
population carried accurate timepieces and was able to profit by the more
efficient adjustment of its actions thus secured. We have seen how the
promising experiment of the Waterbury Watch Company failed in an
attempt to equip the masses with watches, principally through defects in its
system of distribution, and we have noted the appearance of another low-
priced watch dedicated to a similar experiment.
It is obvious, therefore, that if the Ingersoll firm has already been able to
place fifty million separate watches in the service of humanity, something
unprecedented must have taken place in the all-important field of
distribution. It is significant that Robert H. Ingersoll first called his watch
the "Universal;" indeed, his chief contribution to the development of the
watch is the idea of universality, a word that makes us think more of people
than of manufacturers' methods. Having, then, a watch that was universal in
its possibilities as well as in name, and being keenly aware, through his own
tastes and experiences, of the needs of the vast mass of the public, his
greatest problem became that of universal distribution; in short, it was a
selling-problem. At first, there could be no definitely formulated plan;
various methods must first be tried out. From these experiences there
gradually arose an adequate system of reaching the millions of people who
needed watches.

In this, Mr. Ingersoll had effective cooperation. He was the pioneer, the
salesman, the promoter, the one who knew men in the widest sense and had
the faculty of getting results. His brother, Charles H., was the internal
administrator and constant counselor. Later, there was added to the firm a
nephew, William H., who was both a student and an analyst. He scrutinized
trade-tendencies, deduced theories from what he saw, and gave them wide
application in actual tests. Together the members of the firm worked out
sales-principles of equal opportunity and equal treatment—words that had
long constituted a slogan in politics but were something of a novelty as
applied to business. In other words, they based their plans upon the
consumer rather than upon the factory, and upon the idea of goods sold
through the trade rather than to the trade. It took some time, however, to
perfect their system of distribution but, when finally developed, it was the
outgrowth of wide and varied experience.
The firm made its first sales-efforts on the watch through its own mail-order
catalog. The results brought some encouragement, but proved that in itself
this method could never bring the volume of sales necessary for a high-
geared, uniform quantity of production.
The next recourse was to the so-called "regular trade-channels"—the
jobbers and retailers. But these dealers displayed little interest. They were
not promoters of new lines, but distributors of those for which a market
already existed. The jobber sold what the retailers required; the retailers
what the public demanded. Robert Ingersoll's original loud-ticking watch
impressed them more in the light of a curiosity than as a trade-possibility. In
particular it failed to appeal to the jewelers, since they felt it to be out of
keeping with the beauty and value which characterized their stocks of
jewelry and silverware. They reasoned, also, that sales of the new timepiece
would interfere with those of their higher-priced watches, thus failing to
grasp the fact, since proved to be true, that its use would greatly enlarge the
sphere of their sales through cultivating a general watch-carrying habit.

Waltham Thin Model Type of the Finest
American Watch

Ingersoll Waterbury Radiolite
"Tells Time in the Dark"

Elgin
Lady's Wrist Watch

The Hamilton
Famous as a Railroad Watch

Ingersoll Yankee
The Modern Low-Priced Watch

Swiss Man's Wrist Watch

Twentieth Century Watches

Here is represented the final stage in the
development of modern timepieces. Though
of graceful lines, they are designed for
accuracy and utility, and are ranged in price
to fit every purse.
Some effort was made with outside trades, but these generally considered
watches to be out of their line. Nevertheless, in the course of time,
persistent effort began to bring results. Occasionally jobbers made
purchases, and here and there a jeweler or hardware dealer offered the
watches for sale. When the firm felt justified in spending some money for
advertising, the public began to learn at first hand of the Ingersoll watch,
and the sales gradually increased. Many people, however, expressed doubt
as to the quality of a timepiece that could be sold for a dollar, and the
Ingersolls replied with a guarantee that has since become famous.
Then, in the natural course of business, competition developed from the
marketing of inferior goods, and the firm found it necessary to place its
name on the dial for purposes of identification. In spite of all difficulties,
there grew up in course of time a very considerable public demand.
Whereupon certain dealers undertook privately to raise the price in order to
increase their profits. This situation was met by emphasizing the price more
prominently on the boxes and in the advertising, a policy which soon put an
end to price-raising but led, in some instances, to the even greater difficulty
of price-cutting. The better known became the price, the greater became the
temptation to dealers of a certain class to advertise its reduction in order to
bolster up "bargains" upon other goods. This naturally demoralized the sales
of neighboring dealers and caused them to lose interest in the line. Thus,
instead of increasing the sales, the reduced price proved a serious selling
obstacle.
The same difficulty has been encountered by other manufacturers of widely
advertised goods, and some of them have sought through the courts to
compel adherence to their prices, the argument being, as in the case of the
Ingersoll watch, that price-cutting does not serve the interests of the public
but tends to interfere with sales since it obstructs the channels of
distribution. At this writing, the question in its legal phase has not yet
reached a final decision in the courts, but the Ingersolls have solved it in a

practical way, since their trade-policies have brought about the voluntary
cooperation of the retailers.
Such cooperation, however, was not to be attained at once. It came about
through much study and after much experience. It involved the assembling
of a large amount of data upon commercial economics and a deep inquiry
into the fundamental principles of retail distribution. It proved necessary to
weigh and compare recent and important factors in the retail situation. For
example, because of the fact that so many manufacturers were giving
indiscriminate discounts for quantity purchases, it had become profitable to
establish huge department stores, chain-stores, and mail-order houses
whose scale of operation made it possible to handle goods in large amounts.
For a time, the Ingersolls, in common with other manufacturers, gave
discounts for purchases in quantity; later, as the business grew and its
distribution problems were more scientifically studied, they saw more
clearly the way in which the principles of equal opportunity and equal
treatment could be applied.
It was in this spirit that the firm began to ask itself whether the large
distributors were really more efficient than the small retailers; whether they
actually earned the extra amount which they were paid for selling each
watch, and whether it would be a healthful thing for the country if all retail
business were transacted through such organizations—in short, whether
restrictions to such a system were really consistent with the theory of
commercial democracy.
Approached from this standpoint, the answer was found to be in the
negative. A careful research among stores in all sections of the country
showed unmistakably that the cost of selling in a small store was actually
less than in the department store, the chain-store, or the mail-order house.
Viewing the sale of each watch as an individual transaction, it was seen that
a small store in some far-off country village gave quite as valuable service
as did a large store in a metropolis, and therefore should be paid as much.
Consequently, the Ingersolls introduced a selling-plan which, under the
conditions, was as revolutionary in the field of retail distribution as the
discovery of Galileo had been in that of clock mechanism. Yet it was merely
that of a flat-price schedule; in other words, it was a provision that the
dealer buying one dozen watches, or even one single watch, should pay

exactly the same price as the dealer who bought ten thousand. Quantity
discounts were definitely abandoned.
Naturally, this plan met with cordial response from the countless small
retailers scattered throughout the length and breadth of the country, and the
close relationship thus established led to other logical developments in the
way of cooperation, such as that of display devices suited to the needs of
these dealers, a simplified accounting system to increase their efficiency,
and various measures of a similar nature.
In the meantime, a constantly increasing advertising appeal resulted in a
rapidly growing demand from the public, and this, in turn, made possible
the assuring a uniform quantity of output, which was in itself the basis
necessary for maintaining uniform quality. Thus practical experience and
scientific trade-study were formulated into what has come to be recognized
as a definite commercial philosophy, namely, that of uniform quality,
uniform quantity, uniform demand, uniform price to the dealers and
uniform price to the consumer—a statement of principles in which, as in the
works of a watch, each part must be geared to every other to insure
effective operation.
During the time that these business principles were being formulated, the
line of watches was also in process of development with the goal of
universality in view. Thus, it was presently realized that while the dollar
watch was essentially a man's timepiece, watches were also needed by
women and by children. Accordingly, smaller models were developed to
meet these needs. At a later date, the Ingersoll business principles were
extended into the field of jeweled watches, when the factories of the
Trenton Watch Company and the New England Watch Company were
acquired. At the date of the present writing, there are more than a dozen
models, each of which is adapted to a different need and use, but the
manufacture of no model is undertaken unless there is a market for at least a
thousand watches a day.
And the latest development as this is written is the time-in-the-dark watch.
Do you recall a soldier in the "foreword" waiting in the darkness for the
perilous moment to go "over the top" with his eyes fixed upon the luminous
hands and figures of the watch strapped to his wrist? This watch may now

be named; it was the "Radiolite." How it came into existence in time to go
into the Great War is a story in itself.
This story is the latest step in that steady progress of democratization by
which accurate timetelling, once a privilege of the few, became the
possession of the many.
A good many people wish to tell time in the darkness as well as in the light,
and if these people could afford to, they bought expensive repeaters. Such
watches, however, cost hundreds of dollars, so that while telling time in the
light had come within the reach of everyone, telling time in the darkness
was still possible for very few. Therefore, the watch could not yet be held to
be of equal service to all humanity in every one of the twenty-four hours.
This equal service at any moment was finally made possible in a somewhat
extraordinary manner.
In the year 1896, Monsieur and Madame Curie startled the world with the
discovery of radium. They found that certain substances emitted rays that
would pass through solid matter as light passes through glass or as the wind
blows through a screen. They were finally able to secure tiny quantities of a
whitish powder, salt of radium, which gave forth an energy that acted upon
everything brought near to it and this energy they calculated, would be
protected uninterruptedly for three thousand years. Up to the present time,
radium and radioactivity are subjects of constant study and research, but
radium exists in such small quantities and is so enormously costly that
comparatively few have had a chance to experiment with it.
It seems a little strange to think of using the most precious substance in the
world—many times more costly than diamonds—in order to bring time-
telling-in-the-dark within the reach of every person, but this is exactly what
has been done.
People had long been experimenting with paint made from phosphorous in
order to give off a glow in the darkness which would be sufficient for time
reading, but phosphorus has its limitations; it must first be exposed to light
before it is taken into the darkness, and if a watch-dial treated with
phosphorus is buried in the pocket it cannot absorb enough light in the
daytime to be luminous at night. With radium, however, the problem was
solved. It was found that this amazing substance would affect certain other

substances, causing them to shine for years in the darkness by means of
their own light.
Thus it became possible to develop a luminous coating which the Ingersolls
applied to the hands and figures of their "Radiolite" watch and, presto! the
problem of telling time in complete darkness was mastered to the advantage
of every buyer. The inexpensive watch revealing the hour with equal
visibility in inky darkness as in bright daylight had become a reality. In
passing, it is interesting to note that the experiments with the watch-face led
to many other developments, such as luminous compasses, gun-sights,
airplane guides, and the like.
Then came the World War, and the wrist-watch which had been often
ridiculed as effeminate (although it is hard to explain why, since it was first
adopted as an obvious convenience in the Army and on the hunting-field—
two of the most masculine spheres of activity it would be possible to
imagine) was seen at once to be the most easy means of knowing the time
in actual warfare. Millions of watches, consequently, were strapped to
wrists of soldiers and sailors, and the obvious advantages of the luminous
dial placed it in enormous demand. Thus it came about that the scene
described in the opening pages was typical of countless instances upon
various fronts.
Although a matter of surprisingly few years, considered chronologically,
there is a long distance, measured by the scale of progress, between the
moment when a young man, glancing casually at the clock on his bedroom
wall read wonderful possibilities in its face, and the time when the firm he
founded was able to take note of such achievements as these:

Telling Time by Darkness
Many a soldier waited in the darkness for the
perilous moment to go "over the top," with his
eyes fixed upon the luminous hands and
figures of his Ingersoll Radiolite.

Factory facilities producing an average of twenty thousand accurate
watches a day; distribution facilities including the cooperation of a
voluntary "chain-store system" of more than one hundred thousand
independent retailers, all operating upon a common plan and under common

prices; a product that has come into the most wide-spread use not only
throughout the United States but in the farthest regions of the inhabited
earth—which has, in fact, in itself served to turn back the tide by which
watches formerly flowed from Europe into America, so that it now proceeds
from our shores toward those of Europe and other lands; a name which has
become as well known as any in commercial and industrial life, and better
than all, the appreciable raising of the efficiency of the human race through
universally promoting the watch-carrying habit and putting fifty million
timepieces into service. It is altogether an Aladdin tale of modern business.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The End of the Journey
id you ever, at the end of a journey—perhaps across water, or up to the

D top of some high hill—look backward to the place from whence you
came, and wonder that it seemed so far away?
Now as we have completed our journey together through the history of
man's struggle to gain knowledge and control over time, we are impressed
with the great contrast between Time as it was to mankind in the beginning,
and Time as it is to us to-day.
The caveman, with whom we began this story, lived close to nature, taking
his sense of time from her as he took all else. Morning was when the light
came, and he waked and was hungry; noon was when the sun was highest,
and night was the time of lengthened shadows and the state of darkness. We
see these same things, but, for us, they have not the same meanings. We
count the time by hours and minutes, and we reckon these by machines
which we have made, called clocks and watches. These mean so much more
to us that, when we set all the clocks forward another hour to save daylight,
it seemed to us as if we had changed the actual time. It was practically as if
we had performed the miracle of Joshua, who in Bible story, made the sun
stand still, or the miracle of Isaiah, who made the shadow go back ten steps
on the dial of Ahaz. After a few days, we did not feel as if we had set the
clocks; we felt as if we had made the sun wait for us, and the very day come
earlier.
And so it is with the seasons. The caveman called it spring when the
swallows came, and autumn when the leaves changed their color. But we
judge of these things by the calendar; we say that the spring "is very late
this year," or that the "leaves are beginning to turn early." We have a
proverb that one swallow does not make a summer; no, nor do all the
swallows, so far as we moderns are concerned. It is summer for us upon a
certain day, no matter what the swallows do, but for the caveman, summer
was when the swallows came, whenever that might be.

It is like that to-day among primitive peoples. The Turk who listens for the
crowing of a cock or the braying of an ass to tell him of the hour, or calls
the cat to him to look at its eyes and judge the time by the shape of their
pupils—he is more like the caveman in this than like ourselves. So is the
South Sea Islander, who knows the season of the year from the direction of
the trade-winds. So is the patient savage, who cares little as to how long he
must wait for the creature he is hunting to come near the spot where he lies
hidden.
How different it all is with ourselves! We rise at a certain hour, and so many
minutes later we have our breakfast. At such a time, we must be at work.
Our work itself is all made of appointments one after another, or of tasks to
be finished within a certain time. Our meals, our hours of rest, our meetings
with our friends, our recreations, and our pleasures—all these, until, again,
at a certain time we go to bed, in order that so many hours of sleep may
make us fit for the next day, are measured by the clock and counted out by
the tick of a toothed wheel or the regular swing of a pendulum.
We say that the savage has no sense of the value of time. We have, and it is
by that fact largely that we are better off than he. Value means measure; you
cannot value a thing unless you can measure it exactly. And so because we
can measure time, we can see what time is worth to us, and make it worth
more. The savage keeps an appointment—when he happens to make one.
But we, because we know how long it takes to reach a certain place, or how
long a time we need or wish to spend with a certain man, can make and
keep many appointments. We can travel like the wind from place to place,
because in measuring time we can measure speed, and therefore we can
make speed safe and possible. We can talk to a friend a thousand miles
away, or signal by electric waves around the world. We do these things
because our sense of time has told us that the old way of sending letters and
messages was too slow. And so we have set to work to invent ways that
should be quicker. We should never have had the telephone, the cable, or
the wireless, unless we had cared about time and been able to measure it.
The caveman lived, perhaps, as many years as we—but how much did he
do in those years? We, who have learned to measure years and to allot each
day or hour to sundry tasks, have made ourselves able to do far more in a
life-time—many times more. We do not live a greater number of years, but
it is as if we lived many lives in one. We speak of time as we speak of

money, of saving and wasting and spending. Well, Time is Money, as Ben
Franklin said, but it is something more—Time is Life. And we think of our
lives as so much time at our command, and therefore we can make the most
of them. The gulf between us and the primitive men is a contrast of living
less or more, and our more life comes in great measure from our having
learned to measure time.
Everyone has read the story of Aladdin and his wonderful lamp. You will
remember that the poor boy came into possession of a lamp which quickly
made him the richest and most powerful person in the world, since, through
owning it, he could control the service of a mighty genie, able to perform
the most incredible tasks.
The modern man—every man—is something like Aladdin, only he is much
more powerful. He has the genie of steam to work for him when he pulls
the lever, and the genie of electricity ready to serve him if he but press a
button. He has many other mighty servants that modern science has given to
him, but greatest of all, most useful of all, is the Slave of the Watch which
lies in his pocket—mighty Time himself.
This ability to record time and therefore, to control it, is perhaps the greatest
of all man's triumphs. Only see what it has done for him! Have you ever
thought of yourself as a person of no special importance?—why, you have
far more actual power than was possessed by Alexander the Great, Julius
Caesar, or Charlemagne!
You can command forces and can accomplish results that would have made
any of these proud autocrats stare in wonder. If you do not stand out above
your age, as they did above their ages, it is simply because millions of other
people besides yourself also possess these powers. It is undoubtedly true
that we are to-day a race of giants, and it is also true that each of our powers
is directly or indirectly due to the common fact that we all can keep track of
time. For consider that what mankind can accomplish to-day depends upon
the ability of people to work together, and that working together would
cease if people had no accurate means for telling time.
For example, you make a railway journey upon a matter of importance to
you. The first thing that you do is to examine a time-table on which is
shown the minute when the train is due to leave. You calculate to yourself
how many minutes you must allow for reaching the station, and then look at

your watch to see how long you will still have for other work. If you had
not watch or clock, or you were dependent merely upon the position of the
sun, you might go to the station several hours ahead of time in order to be
"on the safe side." During the hours thus saved you can accomplish a great
deal of work. It is as though your day had been made several hours longer.
Unseen in your pocket, your watch ticks steadily. You trust it absolutely,
and you know that it will be faithful to its trust. Occasionally you glance at
it and, when the hand reached the limit of safety, you start for the train. You
reach the station three or four minutes before train-time and find the tracks
clear; no train is in sight.
This however, does not cause you the least uneasiness. You merely take
your watch from your pocket and look expectantly up the line. Perhaps a
minute before the train is due, you hear a distant whistle, then the
approaching roar of wheels upon the rails, and, just as the watch-hand
reaches the proper moment, the train itself whirls round the curve and draws
up to the station, exactly on time.
As you proceed upon your way, you notice how other people at other
stations are also meeting their schedules and conserving their time. You see
the conductor glance at his watch as he gives the engineer the starting-
signal. You realize that the whole transportation system is merely an
enormous piece of clockwork and that it, in turn, is a part of the vaster
clockwork of modern civilization.
Turn where you will, there is nothing that you can do and nothing that you
can use which is not dependent upon the ticking of clockwork. The
locomotive which pulls your train, the cars in which you ride, the rails over
which you pass, all of these are products of factories, but the factories are
run upon the time-basis; there is no other way in which they could be run.
The workmen in these factories leave their records upon time-clocks when
they come and when they go. If the workmen were not there at the same
time, the work could not be done, since most of modern work depends upon
the ability of people to work together at the same task. Even if one man
were late, it might lose time for many. The clothes that you wear come from
other factories where other workmen have time-clocks and watches. The
buildings that you see from the windows were put up on the time-basis and
were paid for according to the movement of the hands upon watch dials.

Time Pieces Vital to Industry
Without the ability to record time, and,
therefore, to control it, the complex web of
human activity would become hopelessly
tangled.

You buy a newspaper, making sure that you are getting the latest edition,
and it is at once as though you looked into a great mirror reflecting the
activities of all the world, but all of the dispatches bear a date-line, and
many of them are also marked with the hour.

Before the days of newspapers, people felt themselves to be a part of the
lives of their own immediate neighborhood and knew only vaguely of what
went on at a distance, but now each day one feels himself to be a part of the
great human family and can sometimes make his plans with reference to
things that may be occurring thousands of miles away. But the newspaper
itself is a product of clockwork; there is perhaps no institution whose
workers keep closer track of the passage of the minutes.
In view of all these things, does it seem too much to claim that if all the
timepieces in existence were destroyed and men were given no other means
for telling time, civilization would swiftly drop to pieces and man would
find himself traveling backward to the conditions of the caveman?
But there is one thing in our modern timekeeping which we still have in
common with the first men who ever kept the time. We still go by the sun
and the stars and refer all our measure to that apparent revolution of the
heavens which we know to be really the motion of our world itself. As did
those wise men of old Babylon, so do we even now, spying upon the mighty
master clock of the universe to correct all our little timepieces thereby. A
man sits alone in an observatory, with his eye to a telescope. That telescope
is of a certain kind, called a "transit." It is fixed upon the meridian, the
north-and-south line in the sky over that place. And a thread of spider-web
across the lens marks for him the exact position of the line, in the very
middle of his field of view. So as he watches, he can see one star after
another come into view at one side of the glass and pass across it to the
other side and disappear. He is watching the world go round.
A certain star appears, one which his calculations have told him will cross
the meridian at a certain particular instant. Beside him is an electrical
device connected with a clock, which marks off seconds at intervals round a
revolving drum. The star draws nearer to the center of his field. As it
crosses the hair-line, the observer touches a key, and the precise instant of
its crossing is recorded upon the drum, to within a fraction of a second.
Since the clock has marked its record of the seconds there, the clock can be
corrected by the star.
Now, if that man had been a priest in Babylon, he would have kept his
knowledge as a means of power to himself and to his equals. If he had been
a dweller in a somewhat later age, he would have kept it to himself no less,

either because people would not believe, or because the claim of too deep
knowledge of the secrets of nature might put his life in danger. But he is a
modern, and so his knowledge is for all who seek it.
On some tall building in a distant city, a time-ball hangs suspended at the
top of its pole, and people pause to look up at it. They hold their watches in
their hands. Upon the tick of noon, an impulse will come from the
observatory, and the ball will drop. Then those who have been looking will
set the hands of their watches and pass on. At the same instant, the news of
noon will be flashed by telegraph across the land, and by wireless to ships
at sea. The whole Western Union system will suspend business for a little,
while the lines are connected and the observatory at Washington ticks off
the seconds. Everywhere there are electric clocks, automatically controlled
by some master clock, which, in its turn is governed by the observatory
time. So we all, as a matter of course and without thinking, set our watches
by the star. Civilization every day catches step with the heavenly bodies.
Back of all that we see of life, therefore, stands the great fact of measuring
time, and those who are engaged in giving to man the instruments for this
purpose have a special responsibility. Perhaps the ancient peoples were not
so far wrong when they permitted time-telling to be a privilege of the
priests. It is far more than a matter of moneymaking; it is a fixing for
humanity of the standards of daily life; it is a duty which lies at the
foundation of modern efficiency; it is even a sacred trust.
Therefore, the man who makes or sells unreliable timepieces is false to his
trust. Through his action people are thrown out of adjustment with the
world about them, and they, in turn may seriously interfere with the plans of
many others. It is hard to believe that there are some people who still look
upon a watch as "jewelry," or that there are some dealers who are more
interested in the watch-case than in the movement it contains.
The watchman of olden times was a public officer. He was chosen for his
reliability, and people felt confidence when he called the hours. The watch-
dealer of to-day is in a somewhat similar position; he has a serious duty to
his community. He is not chosen by the public, and yet, even more than the
watchman, he is a public servant since the watches that he puts into people's
pockets are their principal means of adjustment to the busy affairs of life. In
a sense, he supplies them with the basis of their efficiency. His duty is that

of supplying the largest practicable degree of accuracy to the largest
possible number of people. The Slave of the Watch will not obey the owner
of an inaccurate timepiece.
Time itself is elemental; it had no beginning, it can have no ending. It is like
a great ocean which flows round all of the earth, and neither begins nor
ends in any one place. But time for any man is exactly according to his use
of it. It is as though a man were to go to the shore of the boundless ocean,
with a tin cup in his hand. If he could get no more than a cupful of water, it
would not be because of any limit in the amount available, but merely in his
means for carrying it away. Should he have a pail, a barrel, or any larger
receptacle, then the water would belong to him in a correspondingly larger
amount.
Thus, time each day presents itself equally to everyone upon the earth, but
some receive it in cups, some in pails, and some in barrels. Some make of
their day a thing of no results, while others fill it with real achievement.
Those who achieve are they who have learned to value time, and to make it
serve them as the mighty genie that it is.
These are the wonders which Kipling had in mind when he wrote:
If you can fill each unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of distance run,
Yours is the earth and everything that's on it,
And, what is more, you'll be a man, my son!

APPENDIX A
How It Works
aving traced out the history of the clock and watch mechanism all the

H way from De Vick's first clock and the clumsy old Nuremberg Egg
down to the perfect time-keeping device which we have today, it may
be interesting to look a little more closely at the result of so many years and
so many inventions—to see what its parts are, and how they are put
together, and to observe how the wonderful little machine does its work.
Modern clocks and watches are nearly enough alike in their structure and
way of working, so that if we understand the one, we shall easily
understand the other also. The differences between them are few and slight
and easy to explain. So let us take for our example a typical modern watch
movement, which is easily the more beautiful and interesting mechanism of
the two.
First of all, as we saw in the days of De Vick and Henlein, a watch, or a
clock, is a machine for keeping time. So it must have three essential parts:
first, the power to make it go; second, the regulator to make it keep time;
and third, the hands and face to show plainly the time it keeps. Each of
these three parts is itself made up of several others.
The power or energy which runs the watch is put in to it by the winding
which coils up the mainspring. The outer end of this spring is attached to
the rim of the main wheel (1) and after the spring is wound this wheel
would whirl round and let the spring run down instantly if there was
nothing to stop it. The teeth on this wheel, however, are geared into the
second or center pinion (as shown in illustration at "A") which makes it run
the entire movement while running down slowly instead of flying round and
uncoiling at once.
As we will see later, the spring-power is transmitted through the train of
wheels and the lever (7) to the balance wheel (8) which lets the escape
wheel (5) turn a little each time it swings, while it simultaneously receives,
by means of the lever from the escape wheel, the "impulse" or power which

keeps it running. Thus the swinging of the balance lets the mainspring down
gradually while drawing its power from it. The spring is made as thin as it
can be and still have power enough to make the watch go. For a modern
watch, this is about one flea-power. One horse power, which is only a small
fraction of the power of the average automobile, would be enough to drive
all the millions of watches in the world.
The center pinion into which the mainspring is geared is attached to its staff
to which is also fastened the large center-wheel (2) so that the spring cannot
turn this pinion without also turning the center wheel. But the center wheel
is, itself, geared into the third pinion, which is attached to the third wheel
(3), and this again is geared into the fourth pinion attached to the fourth
wheel (4). The fourth wheel gears into the escape pinion which revolves
with the escape wheel (5), so that none of these wheels or pinions can turn
except when the escape wheel does. But there is a constant pressure from
the spring on all of these wheels, which together constitute what is called
the train.
The escape wheel, therefore, wants to turn continually and if it was not
restrained it would revolve rapidly, letting the movement run down. But it is
retarded and can only turn from one tooth to the next, each time the balance
(8) turns. This action is secured by connecting the balance and the escape-
wheel by means of the lever (7), one end of which forms an anchor shaped
like a rocking-beam, called the pallet (6). In the pallet are two jewelled
projections called the pallet-jewels which intercept the escape-wheel by
being thrust between its teeth, letting it turn a distance of only one tooth at
each swing of the balance as the pallet rocks back and forth.
The other end of the lever is fork-shaped, having two prongs. On the staff
with the balance instead of a pinion as all the other wheels have, is a plain,
toothless disc called the roller, from the lower side of which projects a pin
or rod made of garnet. This is called the jewel-pin or the roller-jewel. The
roller being fastened to the balance-staff, of course, turns just as the balance
turns and with it the jewel-pin. And the lever is just long enough and is so
placed that every time the balance turns, the jewel-pin fits into the slot
between the prongs of the lever-fork carrying it first one way, and then, as
the balance comes back, the other way. Thus the lever is kept oscillating
back and forth, rocking the pallet and withdrawing one pallet-jewel,
releasing the escape-wheel just long enough to let it run to its next tooth

before the other pallet-jewel is thrust in to stop it. It is a beautiful thing, to
watch, like the beating of a tiny heart, or the breathing of a small quick
creature. The hairspring (9) almost seems to be alive. And indeed, it is in a
way, the very pulse of the machine.

A Modern Watch Movement

There is only one more important point to understand. You know how the
power gets as far as the escape wheel from the mainspring, and how the
motion of the balance lets the escape-wheel revolve a tooth at a time, but
you have still to learn how the power which keeps the balance rotating
reaches it from the escape-wheel through the lever. Here is the most
interesting feature of a watch movement.
After the balance has been started, its momentum at each turn starts the
lever when the jewel-pin strikes it, but unless the balance was constantly
supplied with new power it would soon stop, and the watch would not run.
It will be noticed, however, from the illustration, that the teeth of the
escape-wheel are peculiar in shape and very different from those of the
other wheels. The ends of the pallet-jewels are also cut at a peculiar angle.

Now, each time just before the jewel-pin starts to shift the lever from one
side to the other, the latter is in such a position that one of the pallet-jewels
is thrust in so that its side is against that of one of the teeth of the escape-
wheel, keeping it from turning. But the instant the lever commences to
move it begins to draw this pallet-jewel outward from the tooth until the
corner of the jewel passes the corner of the tooth. Then the escape-wheel is
released and the power that is behind it makes it turn quickly, and on
account of the shape of the tooth, it gives the pallet-jewel a sharp push
outward, swinging the lever, causing it at the other end to impart a quick
thrust to the jewel-pin, thereby accelerating the speed of the balance and
renewing its momentum.
Thus the balance receives the power to keep it in motion, swinging it as far
as the hairspring allows. The hairspring then reverses it and swings it until
the jewel-pin again starts the lever in the other direction, releasing the
escape-wheel from which it receives another "impulse" and so on as long as
the mainspring is kept wound. A watch in perfect time ticks five times to the
second. That means 18,000 swings of the balance every hour, or 432,000 in
a day. And in that time, the rim of the balance travels about ten miles.
A clock is essentially only a larger and stronger watch, just as a watch is a
clock made small enough and light enough to be carried about conveniently.
But the working of the two is practically the same. They are but different
members of the same family, varying types of one time-keeping machine
which is among the most ingenious and valuable things that man has made.
One interesting thing to know about a watch is that if it is keeping good
time, it will serve for a fairly accurate compass. So if you are ever lost in
the woods, your watch may help you out again. Lay it flat face upward, and
point the hour hand toward the sun. Then South will be in the direction half
way between the hour hand and the figure 12, counting forward as the
hands turn in the morning hours, and backward in the afternoon. This is
because the hour hand moves around the dial just twice as fast as the sun
moves around the sky, making a full circle in twelve hours while the sun
makes its half circle from horizon to horizon.
Now, the sun is always to the southward of you as you are anywhere north
of the equator. At noon, the sun is practically due South. At that hour, both
hands of your watch are together on the figure 12 and the hour hand

pointing at the sun points in that direction. At 6 a.m. the sun is nearly East,
so if the hour hand, now on the figure 6 is pointed eastward toward the sun,
then South would be in a line just over the figure 9. At 6 p.m., the sun being
in the west and the hour hand pointed at it, South would be half-way back
toward the figure 12, or just over the figure 3. For other morning or
afternoon hours, the same reasoning holds true.

APPENDIX B
Bibliography

Adjusting, Practical Course in—Theo. Gribi. Jewelers' Circular
Publishing Company, New York City, 1901.

American Clockmaking—Its Early History—Henry Terry. J.
Giles & Son, Waterbury, Connecticut, 1870.

American Watchmaker and Jeweler, The—(An encyclopedia.)
H. G. Abbott. Geo. K. Hazlitt & Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1891.

American Watchmaker and Jeweler—J. Parish Stelle. Jesse
Haney & Co., New York City, 1868. Revised Edition, 1873.

Ancient and Modern Timekeepers—Reprint from Harper's
Magazine, July, 1869. Albert D. Richardson.

Annuaire Suisse (de l'horlogerie et de la bijouterie)—Supplement
gratuit—de l'Annuaire du commerce suisse. Geneva,
Switzerland, 1912.

Artificial Clockmaker, The—(Fourth edition with large
emendations.) Wm. Derham. James, John and Paul Knapton,
London, England, 1734.

Ausführliche Geschichte der Theoretisch-Praktischen
Uhrmacherkunst Seit der Altesten Art den Tag
Einzutheilen Bis an das Ende des Achzehnten Jahrhunderts
—Johann Heinrich Moritz Poppe, Roch und Compagnie.
Leipzig, Germany, 1801.

Avis Sur le Privilége des Horloges et des Montres de la
Nouvelle Invention—J. de Hautefeuille, Paris, France.

Clock and Watchmakers' Manual—M. L. Booth. John Wiley,
New York City, 1860.

Clock and Watchmakers' Manual, New and Complete—Mary
L. Booth. J. Wiley, New York City, 1860.

Clock and Watchmaking, Rudimentary Treatise on—E. B.
Denison (Lord Grimthorpe). John Weale, London, England,
1850.

Clock and Watchmaking, Treatise on—Thomas Reid. Blackie
and Son, London, England, 1849.

Clock and Watch Repairing, Essentials of—John Drexler,
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1914.

Clock and Watch Work—From the Eighth Edition of the
Encyclopedia Britannica—Sir Edmund Beckett. Adam and
Charles Black, 1855.

Clockjobber's Handybook, The—Paul N. Hasluck. Crosby
Lockwood and Son, London, England, 1899.

Clock, Watches and Bells—Sir Edmund Beckett. (Sixth edition
Revised and Enlarged.) Lockwood & Company, London,
England, 1874.

Clockwork, Essays on the Improvement of—Alexander
Cumming, London, England, 1766.

Collection Archeologique du Prince Pierre Soltykoff.
Horlogerie. Description et Iconographie des Instruments
Horaires du XVIe Siècle, Précédée d'un Abrégé Historique
de L'Horlogerie au Moyen Age—Pierre Dubois. V. Didron,
Paris, France, 1858.

Curiosities of Clocks and Watches—E. J. Wood. R. Bentley,
London, England, 1866.

Detached Lever Escapement, The—Moritz Grossman. (Revised,
Corrected, Enlarged.) Jewelers' Publishing Co., Chicago,
Illinois, 1884.

Detached Lever Escapement—A Discourse on The—(Pamphlet.)
C. T. Higginbotham. South Bend Watch Co., 1912.

Die Pendeluhr Horologium Oscillatorium—Christian
Huyghens, 1673. W. Engelman, Leipzig, Germany, 1913.

English Trades, Book of—Sir Richard Phillips. (Twelfth
edition.) London, England, 1824.

Essai Sur L'Horlogerie, Relativement à L'Usage Civil, à
l'Astronomie et à la Navigation—2 Vols., Paris, France,
1763.

Evolution of Automatic Machinery—E. A. March. Geo. K.
Hazlitt & Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1896.

Evolution of the Time-Piece—Lyon and Scott. Ottumwa, Ohio,
1895.

Friction, Lubrication and Lubricants—W. T. Lewis. Geo. K.
Hazlitt & Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1896.

Geschichte der Uhrmacherkunst—Emanuel Schreiber. B. Fr.
Voigt, Weimar, Germany, 1850.

Great Industries of United States—Horace Greeley. J. B. Burn,
Hyde & Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1871.

Histoire Corporative de L'Horlogerie de L'Orfèvrerie et des
Industries Annexes—Anthony Babel. A. Kundig, Geneva,
Switzerland, 1916.

Histoire de la Mésure du Temps par les Horloges—Ferdinand
Berthoud, Paris, France, 1802.

Histoire de L'Horlogerie—Pierre Dubois. Published under
management of "Moyen Age et la Renaissance," Paris, France,
1849.

History of Inventions, Discoveries and Origins—Johann
Beckman. Tr. from German by Wm. Johnston. Revised and
Enlarged by Wm. Francis and J. W. Griffith, London, England,
H. G. Bohn, 1846.

History of Watches and Other Timekeepers, A—J. F. Kendal.
Crosby Lockwood and Son, London, England, 1892.

Industrial History of the United States—Albert Sidney Bolles.
Henry Bill Publishing Co., Norwich, Connecticut, 1879.

Jewelled Bearings for Watches—C. T. Higginbotham
(Pamphlet.) G. K. Hazlitt & Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1911.

Journal Suisse D'Horlogerie—Publié sous les auspices de la
classe d'industrie et de commerce. (Société des arts de
Genève.) 1876.

L'Art de Conduire et de Régler les Pendules—Ferdinand
Berthoud. Paris, France. 1805. 1811.

Les Montres Sans Clef—Adrien Philippe. Geneva, Switzerland.
1863.

Lessons in Horology—Jules Grossman and Herman Grossman.
Keystone, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1905.

Les Transformations Industrielles Dans L'Horlogerie Suisse—
Henri Borle. G. Krebs. 1910.

Lever Escapement, The—T. J. Wilkinson. Technical Publishing
Co., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1916.

L'Horlogerie Astronomique et Civile; Ses Usages—Ses Progrès
Son Enseignement à Paris—A. H. Rodanet. Vve. C. Dunod,
Paris, France, 1887.

L'Industrie Horlogère aux États Unis—George Blondel. Soc. de
géographie commerciale de Paris. Bull. mensuel. Paris,
France, 1917.

Manipulation of Steel in Watchwork—John J. Bowman.
Jewelers Circular Publishing Co., New York City, 1903.

Modern Clock, The—Ward L. Goodrich. Hazlitt & Walker, 1905.

Modern Horology—Claudius Lanier. Trans. by J. Tripplin. E.
Rigg. (Second Edition.) Crosby Lockwood & Co., London,
England, 1887.

Modern Horology, Treatise on—Claudius Lanier. Translation.

Modern Methods in Horology—Grant Hood. Kansas City,
Jeweler and Optician, Kansas City, Missouri, 1904.

Nouveau Régulateur des Horloges des Montres et des
Pendules; Ouvrage Mis à La Portée de Tout Le Monde et
Orné de Figures—Ferdinand Berthoud and L. Janvier, Paris,
France, 1838.

Old Clock Book—Mrs. N. Hudson Moore. Frederick A. Stokes
& Co., New York City, 1911.

Old Clocks and Watches and Their Makers—F. J. Britten. B. T.
Batsford, London, England, 1899. Revised and Enlarged,
1914.

Old English Clocks—F. J. Britten. Lawrence & Jellicoe.
London, England, 1907.

Old Scottish Clockmakers—John Smith. W. J. Hay, Edinburgh,
Scotland, 1903.

Short Talks to Watchmakers—C. T. Higginbotham. (South
Bend Watch Co.) 1912. (Pamphlet.)

Simple and Mechanically Perfect Watch, A—Moritz Grossman,
G. K. Hazlitt & Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1891.

Sun-Dials, Book of—Mrs. Alfred Gatty. Bell and Daldy, London,
England, 1872.

Sun-Dials and Roses—Alice Morse Earle. Macmillan Co.,
London, New York City, 1902.

Sur Les Anciens Horloges et Sur Jacques de Dondis Surnommé
Horologius—Falconet Camille. In Liber C. Col. D. V. 16,
1838.

Time and Clocks—A Description of Ancient and Modern
Methods of Measuring Time—(Sir) H. H. Cunnynghame,
M.A., C.B., M.I.E.E. Archibald Constable & Co., London,
England, 1906.

Time and Its Measurement—James Arthur. (Reprinted from
Popular Mechanics Magazine.) Chicago, Illinois, 1909.

Time and Timekeepers—L. and A. Mathey. (Pamphlet.) 1877.

Time and Timekeepers—Adam Thomson. T. and W. Boone,
London, England, 1842.

Time and Time Tellers—J. W. Benson. Robert Hardwicke,
London, England, 1875.

Timekeeper Invented by the Late Thomas Mudge, The—By
Thomas Mudge—his son. Printed for the author, London,
England, 1799.

Tower Clock and How to Make It—E. B. Ferson. Hazlitt and
Walker, Chicago, Illinois, 1903.

Universal Clock Adjuster—Eleazar Thomas Perdue. Richmond,
Virginia, 1877.

Watch, The—Henry F. Piaget. Third edition. A. N. Whitehorne,
New York City, 1877.

Watch Adjusters' Manual—Charles Edgar Fritts. Charles E.
Fritts, London, England, New York City, Toronto, Canada,
1894. (Third edition revised.)

Watch and the Clock, The—Rev. Alfred Taylor. Phillips and
Hunt, New York City, 1883.

Watch and Clock Escapements—Keystone. Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, 1904.

Watch and Clockmaker's Handbook, Dictionary and Guide. F. J.
Britten. E. & F. N. Spon, London. Spon & Chamberlain, New
York City. (Tenth edition), 1902.

Watch and Clockmaking—David Glasgow. Cassel & Co., Ltd.,
London, England; Paris, France; Melbourne, Australia, 1897.

Watch Balance and Its Jeweling, The (A lecture)—C. T.
Higginbotham. (South Bend Watch Co.) 1907.

Watch Factories of America, The—Henry G. Abbott. Geo K.
Hazlitt & Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1888.

Watchmaker and Machinists' Handbook—Wm. B. Learned. G.
K. Hazlitt & Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1897.

Watchmakers' and Jewelers' Handbook—C. Hopkins. John P.
Morton & Co., Louisville, Kentucky, 1866.

Watchmakers' and Jewelers' Practical Handbook—Henry G.
Abbott. Fifth edition revised and enlarged. Geo. K. Hazlitt &
Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1892.

Watchmakers' Handbook—Claudius Lanier.

Watchmakers' Lathe—W. L. Goodrich. Hazlitt & Walker,
Chicago, Illinois, 1903.

Watchmakers' Tables—The American Jeweler, Chicago, Illinois,
1914.

Watchmaking in America—Reprint from Appleton's Journal.
Robbins, Appleton & Co., 1870.

Watch Repairing—F. J. Garrard. Crosby Lockwood & Son,
London, England, 1903.

Watch Tests—A Booklet of Tables—F. M. Bookwalter,
Springfield, Ohio, 1911.

Watchwork, Treatise on—H. L. Melthropp, M.A., F.S.A. E. & F.
M. Spon, London, England, 1873.

Worshipful Company of Clockmakers of London, The—
Catalogue of the Museum of—Second edition. Blades, East
and Blades, London, England, 1902.

Workshop Notes for Jewelers and Watchmakers—Compiled by
Charles Brassler. Jewelers' Circular Publishing Co., New York
City, 1892.

APPENDIX C
American Watch Manufacturers
(CHRONOLOGY)
udged by the number of failures which have marked the development of

J the American watch industry, watch manufacturing might well be
characterized as a perilous business. While it has proved profitable for a
few, it also has swallowed many fortunes.
There were no watch companies in America until 1850, although a few
attempts were made to manufacture watches in the United States prior to
that time—by Luther Goddard, who established the first American watch
factory at Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, in 1809 and made several hundred
watches from 1809 to 1815, when he finally abandoned the business; by
Henry and James F. Pitkin at East Hartford, Connecticut, from 1838 to
about 1845 and by Jacob D. Custer at Norristown, Pennsylvania, from 1840
to 1845.
Except for a few companies whose organization and speedy dissolution had
small, if any, effect upon the industry as a whole, the following briefly
outlines the history of American watch manufacturing companies from the
real beginning in 1850 to the present day:
1850
The American Horologe Company of Roxbury, Massachusetts, organized;
name changed same year to The Warren Manufacturing Company; in 1853
name was again changed to The Boston Watch Company, the principal
stockholders of which organized The Waltham Improvement Company to
buy land and buildings for The Boston Watch Company at Waltham,
Massachusetts; moved into the new factory at Waltham in 1854; failed in
1857 and company's business was bought in by Royal E. Robbins, watch
importer of New York City and Tracy & Baker, watch case manufacturers
of Philadelphia; in 1858 The Waltham Improvement Company increased its
capital and purchased the business and property of The Boston Watch

Company and re-incorporated under the name of The American Watch
Company; in 1885 the name was changed to The American Waltham Watch
Company and in 1906 the name was again changed to The Waltham Watch
Company, its present name; in 1913 the Company purchased the business of
the Waltham Clock Company.
1857
E. Howard & Company of Roxbury, Massachusetts, was organized by
Edward Howard; in 1861 the name was changed to The Howard Clock &
Watch Company; in 1863 the company practically failed and was
reorganized under the name of The E. Howard Watch & Clock Company; in
1881 the Company again practically failed and was again reorganized under
the name of The E. Howard Watch & Clock Company, with Edward
Howard as President, as he had been in the preceding organizations; in 1882
Howard withdrew as President and severed his connection with the
Company. From that time forward the Company gave increasingly greater
attention to the manufacture of clocks, although it continued to manufacture
the Howard watch until about 1903 when it entered into a contract with The
Keystone Watch Case Company of Philadelphia, under which The E.
Howard Watch & Clock Company transferred to The Keystone Company
all rights to the use of the name "E. Howard" in connection with the
manufacture of watches and also changed its own corporate name to The E.
Howard Clock Company. Later the company failed and was operated by
receivers until 1910 when a new company of the same name was organized
and purchased the property of the old concern. The Keystone Company
purchased the factory of The United States Watch Company at Waltham,
Massachusetts, and began the manufacture of watches under the name of
The Howard Watch Company.
1859
The Nashua Watch Company of Nashua, New Hampshire, was organized; it
failed in 1862 and was bought in by the American Watch Company—now
The Waltham Watch Company.
1863
The Newark Watch Company of Newark, New Jersey, was organized; it
sold out to The Cornell Watch Company of Chicago in 1870.

The United States Watch Company of Marion, New Jersey, was organized;
it failed in 1872 and was operated by creditors for a short time under the
name of The Marion Watch Company, but again failed; machinery of the
company was sold to E. F. Bowman of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who
manufactured a few watches and then sold the business to The J. P. Stevens
Watch Company of Atlanta, Georgia.
1864
The National Watch Company was organized and erected a factory at Elgin,
Illinois; in 1874 the name was changed to its present name of The Elgin
National Watch Company.
The Tremont Watch Company of Boston was organized, with Aaron L.
Dennison, one of the founders of the original Waltham Watch Company as
superintendent; it ceased business in 1868 because of lack of capital;
machinery of the company was sold to an English syndicate which
organized in England The Anglo-American Watch Company, the name of
which was later changed to The English Watch Company.
The New York Watch Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, was
organized by Don J. Mozart and others; it practically failed in 1866 and was
reorganized under the same name; again failed in 1870 and the business was
taken over by a new company known as The New York Watch
Manufacturing Company. This Company survived only a few months and
the property and business were taken over by a new group in January 1877
under the name of The Hampden Watch Company, which company, in turn,
was later purchased by John C. Deuber and associates in control of The
Deuber Watch Case Manufacturing Company of Canton, Ohio, which was
originally organized at Cincinnati about 1888.
1867
The Mozart Watch Company of Ann Arbor, Michigan, was organized by
Don J. Mozart after leaving The New York Watch Company; in 1871 the
property and business were sold to The Rock Island Watch Company of
Rock Island, Illinois.
1869

The Illinois Springfield Watch Company was organized; in 1875 it was
reorganized under the same name; in 1879 it was again reorganized and the
name was changed to The Springfield Illinois Watch Company, which was
later changed to The Illinois Watch Company, under which name it now
operates.
1870
The Cornell Watch Company of Chicago was organized and took over the
business of The Newark Watch Company of Newark, New Jersey; in 1874
it sold its business and property to The Cornell Watch Company of San
Francisco, California.
1871
The Rock Island Watch Company of Rock Island, Illinois, was organized
and purchased the business of The Mozart Watch Company of Ann Arbor,
Michigan; it failed the same year without producing any watches and
passed out of existence.
1872
The Washington Watch Company of Washington, D. C., was organized, but
failed after two years.
1873
The Rockford Watch Company of Rockford, Illinois, was organized; in
1896 the company failed and the business was operated by assignee until
1901 when it was sold and reorganized under the name of The Rockford
Watch Company, Ltd.; it discontinued business in 1915, since which time
the remaining stock has been marketed by The Illinois Watch Case
Company of Elgin, Illinois.
1874
The Adams & Perry Watch Manufacturing Company of Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, was organized; it failed in 1876 without producing any
watches; the property was purchased by a syndicate in 1877 which
organized under the name of The Lancaster Pennsylvania Watch Company;
in 1878 it was reorganized under the name of The Lancaster Pennsylvania

Watch Company, Limited; in 1878 it was again reorganized under the name
of The Lancaster Watch Company. In 1884 control of the company passed
to Abram Bitzner, who, with Oppenheimer Bros. & Vieth, selling agents of
New York City, began to operate the company and assumed the name of
"Keystone Watch Company" as a trade mark; they failed in 1890 and in
1892 the property was purchased by The Hamilton Watch Company.
The Freeport Watch Manufacturing Company of Freeport, Illinois, was
organized, but before producing any watches the company's factory burned
and the business was discontinued in 1875.
1874
The Cornell Watch Company of San Francisco, California, was organized
and took over the business of the Cornell Watch Company of Chicago; in
1875 the company was reorganized under the name of The California Watch
Company and in 1877 the business was sold to the Independent Watch
Company of Fredonia, New York.
1875
Fitchburg Watch Company of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, was organized, but
discontinued, for lack of funds, a few years later without producing any
watches.
1877
The Hampden Watch Company, now of Canton, Ohio, was organized at
Springfield, Massachusetts and took over the business of the New York
Watch Company; later, the Company's business and property were
purchased by the interests in control of the Deuber Watch Case
Manufacturing Company of Canton, Ohio.
The Independent Watch Company of Fredonia, New York, was organized
and purchased the business and property of the California Watch Company
of San Francisco; in 1885 the business was sold to the Peoria Watch
Company of Peoria, Illinois.
1879
The Auburndale Watch Company, of Auburndale, Massachusetts, was
organized and purchased the machinery of the United States Watch

Company of Marion, New Jersey. In 1883 the company made a voluntary
assignment.
1880
The Waterbury Watch Company of Waterbury, Connecticut, was
incorporated; in 1898 the name of the company was changed to the New
England Watch Company; in 1912 the company failed, and in 1914 the
property was sold to and is now operated as one of the factories of Robt. H.
Ingersoll & Brothers. of New York City.
The E. Ingraham Company of Bristol, Connecticut, founded by E. Ingraham
in 1835 for the manufacture of clocks, was incorporated; in 1912 the
company purchased the business of The Bannatyne Watch Company of
Waterbury, Connecticut.
The Western Watch Company of Chicago was organized but failed the same
year without producing any watches, the machinery being sold to The
Illinois Watch Company.
1882
The Columbus Watch Company was organized at Columbus, Ohio; it was
the outgrowth of a private enterprise started in 1876 by D. Gruen and W. J.
Savage, who imported watch movements from Switzerland and sold them
in American-made cases. In 1903 the business of the company was
purchased by The South Bend Watch Company of South Bend, Indiana.
The J. P. Stevens Watch Company of Atlanta, Georgia, was organized and
failed in 1887.
1883
The New Haven Watch Company of New Haven, Connecticut, was
organized; in 1886 the company moved to Chambersburg, New Jersey, then
a suburb of Trenton; in the same year the name of the company was
changed to The Trenton Watch Company; in 1907 the company failed and
in 1908 the business and property were acquired by Robt. H. Ingersoll &
Brothers. of New York City. The factory at Trenton has since been operated
as one of the plants of the Ingersolls.

The Manhattan Watch Company of New York City was organized but did
not long continue.
The Cheshire Watch Company of Cheshire, Connecticut, was organized and
continued in operation for about ten years.
The Aurora Watch Company of Aurora, Illinois, was incorporated but did
not begin operations until 1885; failed in 1886; machinery sold in 1892 to
The Hamilton Watch Company of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
1884
The Seth Thomas Clock Company of Thomastown, Connecticut, founded
by Seth Thomas in 1813 and incorporated in 1853, began the manufacturing
of watches in 1884, but discontinued their manufacture in 1914. Seth E.
Thomas, Jr., great-grandson of the founder, is now president of the
company.
The United States Watch Company of Waltham, Massachusetts, was
organized as an outgrowth of The Waltham Watch Tool Company. Later it
failed and its plant was purchased by The Keystone Watch Case Company,
which operates the factory under the name of The Howard Watch Company.
1885
The New York Standard Watch Company of Jersey City, New Jersey, was
organized; in 1902 it was purchased by The Keystone Watch Case
Company, which continues to operate it under the original name.
The Peoria Watch Company of Peoria, Illinois, was organized and took over
the business of The Independent Watch Company of Fredonia, New York,
but did not long survive.
1887
The Wichita Watch Company of Wichita, Kansas, was organized, but
continued in operation only a few years.
1888
The Western Clock Manufacturing Company was incorporated with factory
at Peru, Illinois, and general offices at La Salle, Illinois; began
manufacturing watches in 1895; in 1895 the name of the company was

changed to Western Clock Company; manufacturers of "Big Ben" alarm
clock and low-priced nickel watches.
1890
D. Gruen Sons & Co., of Cincinnati, originally incorporated under laws of
West Virginia; in 1898 re-incorporated under laws of Ohio. Prior to original
incorporation the business was operated as a partnership under the name of
D. Gruen & Sons. Present company also operates under the trade name of
Gruen Watch Case Co. The company manufactures its watch movements in
Switzerland, assembling and casing them in the United States.
1892
The Hamilton Watch Company of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was organized;
made only movements until 1909, but since then, both cases and
movements.
1893
Robt. H. Ingersoll & Bro., of New York City, first introduced the original
Ingersoll watch to the public at the World's Columbian Exposition; in 1892
the Ingersolls had contracted with the Waterbury Clock Company of
Waterbury, Connecticut for the manufacture of the low-priced watch, which
was first sold for $1.50 and later for $1.00; in 1908 the Ingersolls purchased
the factory and business of the Trenton Watch Company of Trenton, New
Jersey, and began watch manufacturing on their own account; in 1914 they
purchased the plant of The New England Watch Company, formerly The
Waterbury Watch Company of Waterbury, Connecticut.
1894
The Webb C. Ball Company of Cleveland, Ohio, founded in 1879 and
incorporated in 1891, began the manufacture of watches.
1899
The Keystone Watch Case Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was
organized. It controls The Howard Watch Company of Waltham,
Massachusetts, The New York Standard Watch Company of Jersey City,
New Jersey, The Crescent Watch Case Company, Inc., of Newark, New

Jersey, and The Philadelphia Watch Case Company of Riverside, New
Jersey.
1902
The South Bend Watch Company of South Bend, Indiana, was incorporated
in New Jersey under the name of The American National Watch Company,
but immediately thereafter changed to its present name; in 1903 it
purchased the business of The Columbus Watch Company of Columbus,
Ohio; in 1913 it was re-incorporated under Indiana laws.
1904
The Ansonia Clock Company of Brooklyn, New York, incorporated in
1873, began the manufacture of low-priced nickel watches; its principal
business, however, is that of clock manufacture.
1911
The Leonard Watch Company of Boston, Massachusetts, was incorporated
for the purpose of selling and distributing watches.

APPENDIX D
Well-Known Watch Collections
(From list compiled by Major Paul M. Chamberlain, of
Chicago in 1915.)

Abbott—George E. H. Abbott, Groton, Massachusetts.

Addington—S. Addington, Esq., purchaser at Bernal sale.

Ashmolean—Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, England.

Augsburg—Maxmillian Museum, Augsburg, Germany.

Baker—Edwin P. Baker, referred to by Britten.

Baxter—James Phinney Baxter, Portland, Maine.

Blois—Musee de la ville, Blois, France.

Boston—Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts.

Bourne—T. W. Bourne, referred to by Britten.

British—British Museum, London, England.

Bulley—Edward H. Bulley, referred to by Britten.

Burkhardt—M. Albert Burkhardt, Basle, Switzerland.

Chamberlain—Paul M. Chamberlain, Chicago, Illinois.

Chesam—Lord Chesam, referred to by Britten.

Cluny—Musee de Cluny, Paris, France.

Clarke—A. E. Clarke, London, England.

Cockey—Edward C. Cockey, New York City.

Cointre—La Famille Cointre, of Poitiers, France.

Copenhagen—Horological Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Cook—E. E. Cook, Walton-on-Thames, England.

Czar—Imperial collection, Hermitage Gallery, Petrograd, Russia
(1915).

Cumberland—Duke of Cumberland, England.

Debruge—Debruge collection, catalogue published in 1849,
referred to by M. E. Deville in Les Horlogers Blesois.

Dennison—Franklin Dennison collection, Birmingham, England.

Devotion—The Edward Devotion House, Brookline,
Massachusetts.

Dickson—R. Eden Dickson, London, England.

Ditisheim—Henri Ditisheim, Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland.

Dresden—Green Vaulted Chambers, Dresden, Germany.

Duplessis—Family of Duplessis of Blois, referred to in Les
Horlogers Blesois.

Dover—Dover Museum, Dover, England.

Dunwoody—Dr. W. J. Dunwoody, mentioned by Britten.

Estreicher—Dr. Tad. Estreicher, Fribourg, Switzerland.

Eschenbach—Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Vienna,
Austria-Hungary.

Fawkes—J. H. Fawkes of Farnlet Hall, England.

Fellows—Collection of Sir Charles Fellows, of Westbourn, Isle
of Wight, bequeathed by widow to British Museum.

Fitzwilliam—Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England.

Fleisher—Collection of Moyer Fleisher, exhibited in the
Pennsylvania Museum,

Memorial Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Foulc—M. Foulc, Paris, France.

Franck—B. Bernard Franck, Paris, France.

Freeman—Charles Freeman, referred to by Britten.

Froidevaux—M. Froidevaux, Blois, France.

Garnier—M. Paul Garnier, Paris, France.

Gelis—M. Edouard Gelis, Paris, France.

Geyer—H. F. Geyer, mentioned by Britten.

Georgi—M. Georgi, Paris, France.

Glyn—George Carr Glyn, referred to by Britten.

Gotha—Museum of Gotha, Germany.

Greene—T. Whitcomb Greene, referred to by Britten.

Guildhall—Guildhall Museum, London, England.

Hartshorne—Albert Hartshorne, referred to by Britten.

Hearn—George Hearn collection, presented by widow to
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Heckscher—Martin Heckscher collection in Vienna, Austria-
Hungary.

Heinz—Collection of Henry J. Heinz, exhibited in the Carnegie
Museum, Pittsburg.

Hodgkins—Collection of J. E. Hodgkins, London, England.

Humphreys—Miss M. Humphreys, mentioned in Britten.

Jenkins—Collection of Jefferson D. Jenkins, Decatur, Illinois.

King—C. King, Newport, Monmouthshire, England.

Kensington—South Kensington Museum, London, England.

Kirner—B. A. Kirner, Chicago, Illinois.

Lambert—Messrs. Lambert, referred to by Britten.

Lazerus—Collection of Moses Lazerus, Philadelphia, bequeathed
to Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Lambiley—Compte de Lambiley, France.

Laurance—E. A. Laurance, mentioned by Britten.

Lebenheim—Mentioned in Morgan catalogue.

Lecointre—Family of Lecointre, Poitiers, France.

Leicester—Leicester Museum, Leicester, England.

Leroux—M. E. Leroux, Paris, France.

Liljigren—L. O. Liljigren, Chicago, Illinois.

Londesboro—Lord Londesboro, London, England.

Louvre—Musee de Louvre, Paris, France.

Marfels—Collection of Carl Marfels, Berlin, Germany.

Massey—Edwards Massey, London, England.

Meldrum—Robert Meldrum, referred to by Britten.

Metropolitan—Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Mirabaud—M. G. Mirabaud, Paris, France.

Moore—Bloomfield Moore collection in Pennsylvania Museum,
Philadelphia.

Morgan—J. Pierpont Morgan collection at Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York City.

O. Morgan—Octavius Morgan collection in British Museum.

Moray—Lord Moray, London, England.

Moss—Rev. J. J. Moss, purchaser at Bernal sale, London,
England, 1855.

Munich—National Bavarian Museum at Munich, Germany.

Nelthropp—Collection presented by Rev. H. L. Nelthropp to the
Worshipful Company of Clockmakers of the City of London
and exhibited at Guild Hall Museum.

Newington—Newington Free Library, Newington, England.

Olivier—M. Olivier, Paris, France.

Parr—Edward Parr, London, England.

Partridge—R. W. Partridge, London, England.

Ponsonby—Hon. Gerald Ponsonby, referred to by Britten.

Proctor—Frederick Towne Proctor, Utica, New York.

Proctor, T. R.—Thomas Redfield Proctor, Utica, New York.

Purnell—J. B. Purnell, purchaser at Bernal sale in 1855.

Ranken—William Ranken, London, England.

Reeves—R. F. Reeves, St. Louis, Missouri.

Renouard—Family of Renouard, Belois, France.

Roberts—Evan Roberts, London, England.

Robertson—J. Drummond Robertson, London, England.

Roblot—Ch. Roblot, Paris—Passy, France.

Rothchild—Baroness Alphonse de Rothchild collection.

Rosenheim—Max Rosenheim, referred to by Britten.

Roux—Edward Roux, mentioned by Britten.

Salting—Collection now in the South Kensington Museum.

Saussure—M. Th. de Saussure, mentioned by Britten.

Sauve—M. Sauve, Belois, France.

Schlichting—Baron von Schlichting, Petrograd, Russia, (1915).

Shapland—Charles Shapland, London, England.

Shaw—Morgan Shaw, London, England.

Sidebottom—Collection of Mrs. H. Sidebottom, in South
Kensington Museum.

Sivan—M. Charles Sivan, Paris, France.

Smythies—Major R. H. Raymond Smythies, London, England.

Soane—Soane Museum, London, England.

Stamford—Stamford Institution, England.

Stroehlin—Stroehlin collection, referred to in J. P. Morgan
catalogue.

Sudell—Edward Sudell, mentioned by Britten.

Sutton—Rev. A. F. Sutton, England.

Thompson—Mrs. G. F. Thompson, Ottawa, Canada.

Torphicon—Lord Torphicon, referred to by Britten.

Turrettini—Turrettini collection referred to by Dr. Williamson in
Morgan catalogue.

Vautier—M. L. Vautier, Belois, France.

Vendome—Calvaire de Vendome, France.

Vienna—Imperial Treasury, Vienna, Austria-Hungary.

Wallace—Lord Wallace collection, bequeathed by his widow to
the British Museum.

Wehrle—Eugene Wehrle, Brussels, Belgium.

Wheeler, H. L.—Horace L. Wheeler, Boston, Massachusetts.

Wheeler—Collection of Willard H. Wheeler, Brooklyn, N. Y.,
exhibited in the Brooklyn Museum, New York City.

APPENDIX E
Encyclopedic Dictionary
brasion—Wearing away by rubbing or friction.

A Adams, J. C.—A promoter instrumental in organizing the Elgin,
Illinois, Cornell, and Peoria Watch Companies, and the Adams & Perry
Manufacturing Company. He invented and patented the "Adams System" of
time records in use on most of the railroads in the West. He last appeared in
prominent connection with the watch and clock business as the organizer of
the Swiss horological exhibit at the World's Columbian Exposition.
Addenda—Tips of the teeth of a wheel beyond the pitch circle. Sometimes
of circular outline; sometimes ogive—that is, of a shape patterned after the
pointed arch. The addendum is also known as the "face" of the tooth.
Adjustment—The manipulation of the balance with its spring and staff to
secure the most accurate time-keeping possible. Three adjustments are
usually made, viz.: for isochronism, temperature and position. Much of the
difference in value and cost of watches depends on this operation.
Adjustment to Isochronism—Strictly speaking this would cover all
adjustment; but it is technically understood to mean an adjustment of the
balance spring so that the time of vibration through the long and short arcs
of the balance is the same.
Adjustment to Positions—The manipulation of the balance and its spring
so that a watch keeps time in different positions. Good watches are usually
adjusted to five positions. They are pendant up; III up; IX up; dial up; and
dial down.
Adjustment to Temperature or Compensation—The adjustment of the
balance and spring so that the time-keeping qualities are affected as little as
possible by changes in temperature. See Compensation.
Ahaz—King of Judea, 742-727 B. C. See Dial of Ahaz.

Alarm—Sometimes spelled "alarum." A mechanism attached to a clock
whereby at any desired time a bell is struck rapidly by a hammer.
Aluminum-Bronze—An alloy of aluminum and pure copper, usually in the
proportion of 10 parts of the former and 90 of the latter. It is considerably
lighter than brass and highly resistant to wear.
Anaximander—Greek astronomer to whom the Greeks ascribed the
invention of the sun-dial in the sixth century B. C.
Arbor—The axle or axis on which a wheel of a watch or clock turns. Also
applied to a spindle used by watchmakers.
Arc—Any section of the circumference of a circle.
Archimedes—A famous Greek philosopher and scientist sometimes credited
with the invention of the clock. About 200 B. C. he made a machine with
wheel work and a maintaining power but having no regulator it was no
better as a time teller than a planetarium turned by a handle. It may have
furnished the suggestion for later time-keeping machines.
Arnold, John—Born 1736. An English watchmaker of note. He invented
the helical form of the balance spring and a form of chronometer
escapement much like Earnshaw's. Died 1799. Arnold's devices have been
most useful and permanent.
Assembling—The putting together of the finished parts of a watch. In a
three-quarter plate watch this is done on the lower plate. In a full plate
movement it is easier and more satisfactory to assemble on the top plate.
Astrolabe—1. An instrument of various forms formerly used especially in
navigation to measure the altitudes of planets and stars. 2. A projection of a
sphere upon any of its great circles.
Astronomical Time—Means solar time, as computed from observing the
passage of the sun across the meridian from noon of one day to noon of the
following day. It is counted continuously up to 24—not in two 12-hour
divisions.
Astronomy—The science which treats of the motions, real and apparent, of
the heavenly bodies. Upon this science, through its determination of the
length of the year, is founded the science of horology—or time-keeping.

Automata—for Striking—Very common on old clocks and very
complicated, such as: Indian King hunting with elephants, Adam and Eve,
Christ's flagellation, and many others. See Clocks, Interesting Old.
Automatic Machinery—The second great contribution of America to
watchmaking after the establishment of the principle of interchangeability
of parts, and making possible the effective execution of that principle.
Auxiliary—A device attached to a compensation balance to reduce what is
known as the "middle temperature error." Some are constructed to act in
high temperatures only—as Molyneux's; and some in low temperatures only
—as Poole's.

alance—The vibrating wheel in a watch or chronometer which with the
B aid of the balance spring (hair-spring) regulates the rate of travel of the
hands. The balance is kept in vibration by means of the escape wheel.
See Compensation Balance.
Balance Arc—In detached escapements, that part of the vibration of the
balance in which it is connected with the train. The remainder is called the
drop.
Balance-Clock—A form of clock built before the pendulum came into use.
The regulating medium was a balance on the top of the clock made with a
verge escapement. See Foliot.
Balance Cock—The standard which supports the
top pivot of the balance. In old watches often
elaborately pierced and engraved.
Balance Spring—In America usually called the
"hair-spring." A long slender spring that governs
the time of vibration of the balance. One end of
the balance spring is fastened to a collet fitted
friction-tight on the balance staff, the other to a
stud attached to the balance cock or to the watch
plate. The most ordinary form is the volute, or flat
spiral. The other form used is an overcoil. See
Bréquet Spring. The principle of the isochronism
of a balance spring was discovered by Hooke, and

first applied to a watch by Tompion. The name BALANCE COCK
hair-spring comes from the fact that the first ones
are said to have been made from hog bristles.
Balance Spring Buckle or "Guard"—A small stud with a projecting
tongue attached to the index arm and bridging the curb pins so as to prevent
their engaging two of the balance spring coils. Used chiefly in Swiss
watches.
Balance Staff—The axis of the balance. The part of a watch most likely to
be injured by a fall.
Balance Wheel—A term often incorrectly applied to the balance itself, but
properly it is the escape wheel of the verge escapement.
Band—Of a Watchcase—The "middle" of the case to which the dome,
bottom and bezel are fastened; the last sometimes screwed, sometimes
snapped.
Bank—Banking-pin.
Banking—In a lever watch the striking of the outside of the lever by the
impulse pin due to excessive vibration of the balance. In a cylinder or verge
movement the striking of the pin in the balance against the fixed banking-
pin.
Banking-Pin—A pin for restricting the motion of the balance in verge and
cylinder watches.
Banking-Pins—1. In a lever watch, two pins which limit the motion of the
lever. 2. In a pocket chronometer, two upright pins in the balance arm which
limit the motion of the balance spring. 3. In any watch, the curb pins which
confine the balance spring are sometimes called banking-pins.
Barlow, Edward (Booth)—A clergyman of the Church of England, born in
1636. He devoted a great deal of time to horological pursuits. He invented
the rack repeating striking works for clocks, applied by Tompion in 1676.
He invented also a repeating works for watches on the same plan. And he
invented the cylinder escapement which he patented with Tompion and
Houghton. When he applied for a patent on his repeating watch he was
successfully contested by Quare, who was backed by the Clockmakers'
Company. He died in 1716.

Bar Movement—A watch movement in which bars take the place of the top
plate and carry the upper pivots. Sometimes termed a "skeleton" movement.
Not generally adopted because its many separate bearing parts promote
inaccuracies where large quantities are to be produced.
Barrel—A circular box which confines the mainspring of a watch or clock.
Barrel Arbor—The axis of the barrel around which the mainspring is
coiled.
Barrel Hollow—A sink cut either into the top plate or the pillar plate of a
watch to allow the barrel freedom.
Barrel Hook—A bent pin in the barrel to which the mainspring is attached.
Barrel Ratchet—A wheel on the barrel arbor which is prevented by a dog
from turning backward while the mainspring is being wound and which
becomes the base against whose resistance the train is driven.
Bartlett, P. S.—One of the early watchmakers of America. Connected with
the Waltham factory at first and later with the Elgin Company. It is said that
he first proposed the formation of the company at Elgin. His name became
familiar as a household word throughout the country from being inscribed
upon a full-plate model which attained widespread success.
Beat—The strike or blow of the escape wheel upon the pallet or locking
device.
Beat Pins—The pins at the ends of the pallets in a gravity escapement
which give impulse to the pendulum.
Beckett, Sir Edmund—See Denison, Edmund Beckett.
Berosus—A Chaldean historian who lived at the time of Alexander the
Great, about 200 B. C., and was a priest of Belus at Babylon. Said to have
been the inventor of the hollow sun-dial. He was the great astronomer of his
age.
Berthoud, Ferdinand, 1727-1807— An eminent French watchmaker and
writer on horological subjects. Among his books are: "Essai sur
l'Horlogerie," "Traite des Horloges Marines," and "Histoire de la mesure du
Temps." He was a Swiss by birth, but lived most of his life in Paris.

Bezel—The ring of a watch or clock case which carries the glass or crystal
in an internal groove.
Big Ben—The great bell which strikes the hours on the clock at
Westminster.
Bizzle—A corruption of Bezel. See Bezel.
Blow Holes—Places where the brass and steel of a compensation balance
are not perfectly united, when they are put together with silver or solder.
Bob—The metal mass forming the body of a pendulum.
Boethius, Ancius Manlius Severinus, A. D. 480-524—A Roman
philosopher and statesman to whom is sometimes attributed the invention of
the clock. He did make a sun-dial and a water clock which latter may have
contained a germ of the idea later developed into our modern clock.
Boss—A cylindrical prominence or stud. The minute hand is carried on the
boss of the center wheel.
Bottom—Of a Watchcase—The cover outside the dome of the case.
Commonly called the "back."
Bouchon—The hard brass tubing of which pivot holes in watch and clock
plates are made; known commonly as "bushing wire." The short sections
cut off for a pivot being called the "bushing."
Bow—The ring of a watch case to which the guard or chain is attached; also
known as "pendant bow."
Box Chronometer—A marine chronometer.
Boxing-In—Fitting the watch movement in its
case; applied chiefly to the encasing of stem-
winding movements.
Bréquet, Abraham Louis—A celebrated Swiss
mechanician and watchmaker born at Neufchatel
in 1747. He made several improvements in
watches, the most notable being the Bréquet BOW AND BUTTON
hairspring still in use in the best watches. He
died in 1823.

Bréquet Spring—A form of balance spring
which is a volute with its outer end bent up
above the plane of the body of the spring and
carried in a long curve towards the center near
which it is fixed. Like all other springs in
which the outer coil returns towards the center,
it offers opportunities of obtaining isochronism
by varying the character of the curves
described by the outer coil and thus altering its
resistance. So-called from its inventor,
Abraham Louis Bréquet (q. v.). Its advantage BRÉQUET SPRING
over the flat spring is that the overcoil allows
expansion and contraction in all directions, thereby avoiding a good deal of
side friction on the pivots as well as insuring more nearly perfect
isochronism in changes of temperature.
Bridge—A standard fastened to the plate, in which a pivot works.
Bridge Model—The term given to watch movements in which plates or
bridges carrying the upper pivots of the train rest firmly on the lower or dial
plate and are held rigid by steady pins on lower side of the plate; the bridge
being secured direct to the dial plate by screws termed plate or bridge
screws. This is the most common construction of present-day manufacture
and is utilized in three-quarter plate or separate and combination bridges
covering one or more pivots of train wheels. Its alternate is "pillar model."
Buck, D. A. A.—A watch repairer in Worcester, Mass., who designed a
model for the Waterbury watch. His first model was not successful, but in
1877 he completed one which, a little later, the Waterbury Company, with
Buck as master watchmaker, started to make. He remained with the
company until 1884.
Bush—A perforated piece of metal let into a plate to receive the wear of
pivots.
Butting—The engaging of the tips of the teeth of two wheels acting in gear.
The proper point of contact being in the line of the shoulders of the teeth,
butting is remedied by setting the wheels farther apart.
Button—The milled knob used for winding and setting a keyless watch.

alculagraph—Trade name for a device for automatically computing

C and recording elapsed time in connection with factory jobs and other
work where it is necessary to show the amount of labor used.
Calendar—A system of dividing the year into months and days. The
principal calendars known to history are: the Julian calendar; the Gregorian
calendar; the Hebrew calendar; the Mohammedan calendar; and the
Republican calendar. None of them has been quite accurate in dividing up
the solar year, and frequent arbitrary corrections are necessary to secure a
practical approximation. See descriptive article under each title.
Julian—Established by Julius Caesar, 46 B. C., to remedy existing defects
in the Roman calendar then in use. The Julian year was based on the
assumption that the solar year is 365¼ days—which was 11 minutes and 14
seconds too long. The scheme adopted was to make the regular calendar
year 365 days, and to add one day every fourth year. The Julian calendar is
still in use by Russia and Greece, where the dates now differ from those of
most other countries by 13 days.
Gregorian—Established October 15, 1582, by Pope Gregory XIII, in
correction of the obvious errors of the Julian calendar. It is the calendar now
in use by nearly all civilized nations. The mean length of the Gregorian year
is 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds—26 seconds longer than
the actual solar year. Correction is made by adding a 29th day for February
every fourth year, excepting when the date of said fourth year is divisible by
100. If, however, the date is also divisible by 400, the extra day is added.
Republican—The calendar of the French Revolution (1793) declared to
begin at midnight on the meridian of the Paris Observatory preceding the
true autumnal equinox, September 22, 1792. There were 12 months of 30
days each and 5 or 6 "extra days" (as might be necessary) at the end of the
year to bring the new year nearest to the then position of the equinox.
Abolished January 1, 1806.
Hebrew—Composed of 12 lunar months, a thirteenth month being added
from time to time to secure correspondence of the months with the passing
seasons. The months are arbitrarily arranged to have alternately 29 days and
30 days. The length of the calendar year varies from 353 days to 385 days.

Mohammedan—Based on a lunar year of 354 days divided into 12 lunar
months which are alternately 29 and 30 days in length. During each period
of 30 years a total of 11 days are added one at a time at the end of a year.
The lack of co-ordination with the solar year results in a total separation of
the seasonal year and the calendar year. In use in Turkey and some other
Mohammedan countries.
Calendar Clock, or Watch—A clock or
watch which indicates days and months as
well as hours.
Caliper—The scheme of arrangement of a
watch train, or the disposition of the parts
of a watch.
Cam—A rotating piece either non-circular
or eccentric, used to convert rotary into
linear reciprocating motion, oftener
irregular in direction, rate, or time.
Cannon Pinion—The pinion to which the CALENDAR CLOCK
minute hand is attached. It is tubular in
form (whence its name), the main arbor
passing through it friction-tight.
Canton Berne—The Swiss district which does
the largest export business in silver and base
metal watches in Switzerland. The cantonal
government has done everything possible to
promote the industry, among other things: 1.
Established information offices in the principal
watch-making centers. 2. Established a
permanent exhibition of articles used in the
industry. 3. Established schools and CAM
associations and protective territories. 4.
Prepared statistics and means for negotiating
commercial relations.
Cap—The part of the case that covers the movement.
Capped Jewel—A jewel having a protective end-stone.

Carillon—Chimes frequently used in the earlier clocks for striking the
hours. Still used in some clocks.
Caron, Peter Augustus—A famous Paris watchmaker, afterward called
Beaumarchais, who made the first keyless watch of which we have any
account.
Case—The metal box in which the movement of a watch is inclosed.
Case-Springs—The springs which cause the outer bottom of a watch case to
fly open when the lock spring is released.
Center of Gyration—That point in which the whole mass of a rotating
body might be concentrated without altering its moment of inertia.
Center of Oscillation—That point in a pendulum at which, if the whole
mass of the pendulum were collected, the time of oscillation would be the
same.
Center Seconds or Sweep Seconds—A long seconds hand moved from the
center of a watch dial, as are the minute and hour hands.
Center Staff—The arbor attached to the center wheel which carries the
minute hand.
Center Wheel—The wheel in ordinary clocks and watches placed in the
center of the frame on whose arbor the minute hand is carried. It is
intermediate between the barrel and the third wheel.
Chamfer—To cut away to a bevel the right angle formed by two adjacent
faces as of a jewel or stone. It is also occasionally used to signify
channeling or grooving.
Chasing—A form of ornament for metals
which is made by punching or pressing from
behind to present the pattern in relief instead
of by cutting away the material.
Chops—In a pendulum clock the blocks,
usually of brass, between which the top of the CHAMFER
pendulum suspension spring is clipped to
prevent its twisting as it swings.

Chronograph—In general, a recording clock or watch. Specifically, a watch
with a center-seconds hand which may be stopped, started or returned to
zero at will by pressing a button. Used for timing races, or measuring other
short spaces of time with great exactness.
Chronometer—Any very accurate time-keeper. Usually understood to
mean a time-keeper fitted with a spring detent escapement. They usually
have a fusee and a cylindrical balance spring.
Chronometer, Marine—Probably the most exact form of time-keeper,
especially for use on shipboard. The driving power is a mainspring acting
by a chain on a fusee, and governed by what is known as the Chronometer
or Detent Escapement, with, as a rule, the cylindrical balance spring. The
movement is mounted on gimbals in an air and water-tight brass case,
maintaining the dial constantly in a horizontal position.
Chronoscope—A clock or watch in which the time is shown by figures
presented at openings in the dial.
Church, Duane H.—Credited with having contributed more to the
automatic features of watch machinery than any other man. He was born in
Madison County, N. Y., in 1849. At 16 he was apprenticed to a watchmaker
of St. Paul, Minn., and after working at the trade for 17 years, he became in
1882 the master watchmaker for the Waltham Watch Company. Besides his
invaluable contributions to automatic machinery, he improved the general
design of watch movements and invented a form of pendant setting which
enables stem-winding movements to be set in cases not especially adapted
to them. He died in 1905.
Circular Error—The difference in time arising from the swinging of a
pendulum in a circular arc instead of its true theoretical path which is a
cycloidal arc. This caused much trouble in the early clocks. Huyghens
attempted to correct it (see Huyghens' Checks) but found that his device
caused greater error. With the heavier pendulum and shorter arcs of
vibration this error becomes negligible. The suspension of the pendulum by
a flat flexible spring instead of a cord, attributed to Dr. Hooke, served to
make the path practically cycloidal.
Cleopatra's Needle—An Egyptian obelisk at whose base a dial was
marked. Now in London. Another similar obelisk from Egypt is in Central

Park, New York City.
Clepsammia—The sand-glass, more familiarly known as the hour-glass. See
Hour-glass; Sand-glass.
Clepsydra—A device for the measurement
of time by the flow of running water. Its
simplest form is a vessel filled with water
which trickles or drops slowly from a small
aperture into another vessel. One or the other
of the vessels is graduated and the height of
the water in that one at any given time
indicates the hour. Sometimes a figure
floating on the water points to the hours.
Later, falling, or running, water was made to
turn wheels or to move a drum, as in
"Vailly's clock." Clepsydras were made and
improved up to the 17th century. The earliest
known example—one in China—is credited
with having existed in 4000 B. C. The name
indicates the stealing away of water and is
derived from two Greek words meaning
"water" and "to steal." A common form of
clepsydra in India was a copper bowl with a
CLEPSYDRA
small hole in the bottom floating on water.
When the bowl filled and sank the attendant
emptied it, struck the hour upon it and floated it again on the surface of the
water. Like the sun-dial, the clepsydra was invented so long ago that there is
no authentic record of its origin. Its evident advantages are exactly those
which the sun-dial lacked. It is quite independent of day or night or other
external conditions; it is conveniently made portable; and by regulating the
size of the aperture through which the water flows, it can be made to work
slow or fast so as, within considerable limits, to measure accurately and
legibly long or short intervals of time.
The disadvantages of the clepsydra were, first, that the hole in the container
tended to become worn away so as to let the water out too fast; and second,
that the water ran faster from a full vessel than from one nearly empty,
because of the greater pressure. This latter was in classic times corrected by

a clepsydra consisting of two vessels. The second and larger of these was
placed below, the water running into it, out of the first. A float within this
larger vessel rose regularly as it filled, and carried a pointer which marked
the time. The first vessel from which the water ran into the second, was
provided with an overflow, and kept constantly full up to this level; so that
the flow of water into the larger vessel remained constant.
Once well established and understood in
principle, the clepsydra became widely
known over the ancient world, and
underwent a variety of improvements and
modifications in form. These latter chiefly
dealt with making it more legible. Means
were devised, for instance, to make it ring
a bell when the water reached a certain
height. And thus the alarm principle was
very early brought into use. Later on, after
the development of mechanical devices
like the pulley and the toothed wheel or
gear, the pointer was by these means
constructed to move faster or slower than
the rate at which the water rose, or to
revolve upon a circular dial on which the
hours were marked. And thus we owe to
the clepsydra the origin of the modern
clockface as well as of the alarm. Later
still, by a more complex ingenuity, devices
were arranged to strike the hours or to
move mechanical figures, in fact, to perform all the functions of a
clockwork which was both driven and regulated by hydraulic power. The
single hour hand, however, remained in place of our two or three hands
moving at different speeds, as in the modern clock or watch. The clockwork
also remained primitive in construction compared with our own. Clepsydrae
were always expensive, because accurate mechanical work was never
cheapened until modern time. Rather they were made marvels of patient
ingenuity and lavish ornament. Cunning oriental craftsmen spent their skill
upon elaborate mechanism and costly decorations. The clepsydra thus
became first what other time-pieces later became—a triumph of the

jeweler's craft—a gift for kings. And the Greeks, who beautified everything
that they touched, made it at once more accurate and more artistic.
The clepsydra may thus fairly claim to have been the first mechanical
device for measuring time, as contrasted with the sun-dial which was really
an astronomical instrument; and thus the direct ancestor of the mechanical
clocks of later days. Some authorities, indeed, on the strength of certain
very ancient allusions to its use in China and elsewhere, claim for it an
antiquity prior to the sun-dial itself. There seems, however, to be no reason
for supposing that the discovery of a mechanical law like the regular flow
of water antedated so obvious a discovery as the motion of a shadow upon
the ground. The explanation is probably that the invention of the clepsydra
did precede the scientific perfecting of the sun-dial by the inclinations of
the gnomon; which may have taken place about the time of the correction of
the Babylonian calendar in 747 B. C. Not long after this date we meet with
frequent references to the placing of a clepsydra in the public square of
some old city, or to its use in astronomical calculations. To this, of course,
its property of running by night was peculiarly adapted.
Although the chief defects of the clepsydra were minimized by the use of
the two vessels and by making the aperture through which the water ran of
gold or some other substance which would wear away very slowly, yet there
remained certain minor imperfections. The water could not be kept entirely
from evaporating; it had to be emptied out at intervals and the reservoir
refilled; its accuracy was affected by the expansion of the parts under
change of temperature, or it might even freeze. These faults were obviated
in the sand-glass or hour-glass which for short intervals of time was also
more convenient.
The clepsydra remained in use until clocks became superior to it in
accuracy. See Clocks, Interesting Old; Charlemagne; Vailly.
Clerkenwell—A district on the north side of the city of London within the
metropolitan borough of Finsbury. It is distinguished as one of the great
centers of the watchmaking and jewelers' industries in England and long
established there. The Northampton Polytechnic Institute, Northampton
Square, has a department devoted to instruction in all branches of the trade.
Click—The click, pawl, or dog, is a necessary accessory of a ratchet wheel.
It is a finger, one end of which fits into the teeth of the ratchet, while the

other is pivoted on its tangent. The ratchet is thus prevented from turning
backward.
Clock—Specifically, a time-piece not made to be carried about but to stand
upon a shelf or table, hang upon a wall or as built into a tower. Formerly the
term signified particularly a time-piece which struck the hours. The word
has its origin in the word for bell in Latin, gloccio; Teutonic, glocke;
French, cloche; and Saxon, clugga. At one time the term was used to denote
timekeepers driven by weights as distinguished from those driven by
springs.
Clock-Watch—A watch which strikes the hours in succession, as
distinguished from repeaters. Popular in the eighteenth century.
Clock, Banjo--A wall clock, so called from its shape,
designed by Simon Willard, of Massachusetts and very
popular in its time.
Clock, Bird-Cage—
An old form of
English clock whose
manufacture has been
discontinued—it is the
oldest form of English
clock still doing
service. Its main
feature is the endless
chain drive. These
clocks run thirty
hours.
Clock, Bracket—A
form of clock very
popular in England
CLOCK- during the reign of
BANJO
Charles II, made to
stand on a bracket or CLOCK, BIRD-CAGE
table and intended to be seen from all
sides. These clocks had either a handle on top or one on each side. They
were very beautifully finished.

Clock, Candle—Wax or tallow candle, usually twelve inches long and
marked with circular lines one inch apart. The candle would burn one inch
every twenty minutes or three inches an hour. Invention credited to King
Alfred the Great.
Clock, Grandfather's or Long-Case—A tall clock with an anchor
escapement popular thru-out the later 18th and early 19th centuries in
England and America. Its excellent timekeeping qualities are due to the
very long and heavy pendulum which allows a small arc of vibration. Not
often made at present.
Clock, Hood—A style of clock originating and very popular
in Holland during the late 17th century. Made of various
woods, carved and ornamented and named from the hood or
dome on top.
Clock, Lamp—A long glass tube upright on a metal stand
similar in shape to the old Roman lamps. Figures were
painted on the tube to indicate the hours—"12" in the middle
section, with "11" above and "1" below the "12." The lamp
was filled with oil up to the hour at which it was lighted—
then as the oil burned away the time was indicated. This
form of clock was used at night in Dutch and German rural
homes until a comparatively recent date.
Clock, Lantern—Same as Bird-Cage Clock.
Clock, Largest in World—The Colgate
clock in Jersey City is claimed to be twice as
large as the next largest clock in the world.
Its dial can be read for four miles and weighs
six tons. Its minute hand is twenty feet long
and the tip of it travels more than half a mile per day.
Clock Mysteries—Glass Dial—A perfectly transparent dial
behind which no movement was visible. The hands were
caused to revolve by watch works and semi-circular weights
in the counterpoise of the hands.
Clock, Oldest in America—A clock owned by the
Philadelphia Public Library—over two centuries old. It was

made in London and is said to have been owned by Oliver
Cromwell.
Clock, Sheep's-Head—A clock similar to the bird-cage or
lantern clock in which the dial face projects an inch or two
beyond the frame.
Clock, Skeleton—A clock whose works are covered with
glass as a protection from dust, but are without a case, the
works being exposed to view. There are eight skeleton
clocks in the Charles Mifflin Hammond collection at the
Essex Institute in Salem, Massachusetts.
Clock, Turret—A large clock in which the dials are distinct from the
movement. Because of the exposure of the hands to the wind and snow, of
the clock to dust and dirt, and of the oil to freezing temperature, turret
clocks to keep time must be fitted with some device to obtain a constant
force on the pendulum. The first used was the remontoire but since the
invention of the gravity escapement for the Westminster clock by Sir
Edmund Beckett this has been used instead.
Clock, "Wag on the Wall"—A wall clock typical of the
North of Holland in which weights and pendulum hung
below the clock case, entirely unenclosed.
Clock and Watch Makers, English, Early—For
extensive lists, dates, places, and notes, see: Old Clocks
and Watches & Their Makers, by Frederick J. Britten;
Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, London, Published
by E. J. Francis and Co., London, 1875; Old Clock Book,
by Mrs. N. H. Moore.
French, Early—See: Old Clocks and Watches and Their
Makers, by F. J. Britten.
Scottish, Early—For extensive list with dates, places and
notes, see: Old Scottish Clock Makers, by John Smith.
Clock Makers, American, Early—For lists, dates, places,
and notes, see: Old Clock Book, by Mrs. N. H. Moore;
American Clockmaking—Its Early History, by Henry
Terry.

Clock Mysteries; Tortoise in Water—Nicholas Grollier during the first
part of the eighteenth century made many mysterious timekeepers. One was
a metal dish filled with water in which floated the figure of a tortoise
always keeping his nose to the correct time.
Ball of Venice—This was a sphere—its upper and lower parts gold, and
about the middle a silver band bearing the numerals. As the band revolved a
Cupid's wing pointed to the hour. Its action was simple. The cord which
suspended it was wound about a cylinder. The weight of the ball constituted
the driving power. It had a verge escapement. The maker is not known.
Double Globe—Constructed of two clear glass globes, the smaller one for
the minutes above the larger hour globe. The mechanism for the latter was
in the base, and for the minute globe, in the cap of the hour globe. Made by
Henri Cunge.
Clocks, Interesting Old: Anne Boleyn's—A clock said to have been
presented to Anne Boleyn by Henry VIII on their wedding morning. It is
about four inches square and ten inches high, of silver gilt "richly chased,
engraved, and ornamented." The weights are of lead covered with copper,
gilt and engraved. On one are Henry's and Anne's initials, and true lovers'
knots. On the other simply H. A. At the top of each weight is "Dieu et mon
droit," at the bottom "The most happye." On the top of the clock is the
figure of a lion holding the arms of England, the same being engraved on
the sides. The clock is now silent. There is no record as to its maker.
Canterbury—This was the third of the large clocks in England. It was
constructed in 1292.
Charlemagne's—In 807 the King of Persia sent Charlemagne a bronze
water clock inlaid with gold. The dial consisted of twelve small doors
representing the hours. Each door opened at the hour it represented and the
correct number of balls fell out upon a brass bell. At twelve o'clock twelve
horsemen appeared and shut the doors.
Coblentz—At Coblentz in a tower on the Kaufhaus is a brazen head which
gnashes its teeth as the hours strike. For a Coblentzer to say "How is the
man in the Kaufhaus" means "How goes it with Coblentz and the good
people there?"

de Vick's—In
1364 Henry de
Vick set up a
clock in the
tower of the
palace for
Charles V. It was
regulated by a
balance. The
teeth of the
crown wheel
acted upon two
small levers
called pallets
which projected
from and formed part of an upright spindle
or staff on which was fixed the balance.
The clock was regulated by shifting the
weights placed at each end of the balance.
On the bell of this clock the signal for the
massacre of St. Bartholomew's was struck.
Dondi's at Pavia—Built in 1344, by James
Dondi, similar to Wallingford's clock.
Exeter—A clock built in Exeter Cathedral
sometime in the 14th century. One erected
there in 1480 has the sun—a fleur-de-lis which points out the hours as it
revolves around a globe representing the earth. A black and white ball
represents the moon's phases by turning on its axis.
Frederick II—The Saladin of Egypt presented Frederick II of Germany with
a clock in the year 1232. It resembled internally, a celestial globe, in which
figures of the sun, moon, and other planets moved impelled by weights and
wheels. There were also the twelve signs of the Zodiac which moved with
the firmament.
Hans von Jena's—An old clock in Saxony at the top of which is a very ugly
head. As the clock strikes a pilgrim offers an apple on a stick to the open

mouth and then withdraws it. At the same time an
angel opposite the pilgrim raises her eyes from her
book. The legend goes that Hans von Jena, for a
crime, was condemned to undergo such torture for
three centuries.
Jefferson's—An old weight clock in which the
weights are carried over a pulley and made to
indicate the day of the week by their position. This
is in the hallway at Monticello.
Lists and Descriptions of—See Curiosities of
Clocks and Watches, E. J. Wood. Old Clocks and
Watches and their Makers, F. J. Britten. Old Clock
Book, N. H. Moore.
Vase Clocks of Marie Antoinette—The movement was
inclosed in a marble pedestal. About the beautifully
tinted porcelain urn was a double band, on which were
marked the numerals and which revolved every twelve
hours. A serpent with head erect pointed to the hour.
Mary, Queen of Scots
—Skull Watch or
Clock. A small clock
in the form of a skull
said to have been
given by Mary, Queen
of Scots, to Mary
Seaton, one of her
maids of honor. The
skull is of silver gilt and is engraved with
figures of Death, Time, Adam and Eve, and the Crucifixion. The lower part
of the skull is pierced to emit the sound when it strikes, being cut in the
form of emblems of the Crucifixion. The works occupy the brain's position
in the skull fitting into a silver bell which fills the entire hollow of the skull.
The hours are struck on this bell by a small hammer on a separate train.
Pope Sixtus'—Built by Habrecht of Strasburg in 1589. It greatly resembles
the Strasburg clock which Habrecht also built. It was in the possession of

the Popes for more than two centuries and later became the property of
William I, King of the Netherlands. In 1850 it was exhibited in England
after which it became the property of Mr. O. Morgan. It performs all the
feats of the Strasburg clock.
Rouen—In the Rue de la Grosse Horloge in Rouen a clock made by Jehan
de Fealius in 1389 is built in a tower which surmounts an arched gateway.
Its dial is about six feet square. It shows the hours, days of the week, and
phases of the moon. It still keeps excellent time and is the chief clock of the
city.
St. Dunstan's—Erected in 1671 above the
gateway of the old St. Dunstan's Church.
The clock had two dials, back to back
upheld by a quaint bracket. In a little open
belfry above were the gaily painted figures
of Gog and Magog which struck the
quarters on bells suspended near them. In
1830 the clock was sold to the Marquis of
Hertford who set it up at his home in
Regent Park.
St. Paul's—A clock existed prior to 1298
in the tower of St. Paul's Cathedral which
struck the hours by means of mechanical
figures called Paul's Jacks. Later a fine dial
was added.
Strasburg—Rebuilt twice after the first
one which was begun about 1352. This first clock consisted of a calendar
which showed the principal movable feasts. It showed also the movements
of the sun and moon. On the upper part was a statue of the Virgin before
which at noon the figures of the three Magi bowed. At the same time a cock
automaton opened its beak, flapped its wings and crowed. 2. The second
Strasburg clock was erected about 1570. This was a very elaborate
mechanism, showing besides the time, a calendar for a century, the
movements of the sun and moon, eclipses of the same and other things. The
striking was done by an elaborate automatic arrangement. (See Old Clocks
and Watches & Their Makers—F. J. Britten.) 3. In 1842 the clock was again

thoroughly reconstructed. This, too, is a very elaborate system of motions
showing the movements of sun, moon, and planets, also sidereal time, a
calendar, etc. The hours and quarters are struck by automatic figures.
Ulm—In the eastern end of the old Rathaus at Ulm is installed an
astronomical clock which dates from the beginning of the 16th century. It
was thoroughly repaired in 1549 by the builder of the Strasburg clock—Isak
Habrecht. Shows in addition to the hours, the diurnal and annual revolutions
of the earth and the movements and phases of the moon. The clock is an
artistic achievement as well as a mechanical wonder.
Vailly's—A scientific water clock. It consisted of a tin cylinder divided into
several small cells and suspended by a thread fixed to its axis, in a frame on
which the hour distances fixed by trial were marked. It was so made that the
water passed slowly from one cell to the next and as it did so it changed the
center of gravity of the cylinder and set it in motion so as to indicate the
time on the frame. Made about 1690.
Wallingford's—Built in 1326 in St. Alban's Monastery. It showed besides
the hours, the apparent motion of the sun, the ebb and flow of tides, changes
of moon, etc. It continued to run until the time of Henry VIII. Held by some
to have been a mere planetarium.
Wells Cathedral—Clock built by Peter Lightfoot, A. D. 1340 at
Glastonbury and removed to Wells Cathedral during the Reformation, after
the dissolution of the Glastonbury monastery. In 1835 it was again removed
to the South Kensington museum. At that time the worn-out works were
replaced by a new train, but the dial and knights were retained. The dial is
divided into twenty-four hours and shows the motion of the sun and moon.
On its summit are eight armed knights tilting at one another, lance at rest by
a double rotary motion.
Westminster—A clock said to have been erected at Westminster with the
proceeds of a fine imposed upon one of the Chief Justices about 1288.
About 1365 Edward III had a stone clock tower erected at Westminster.
This tower contained a clock which struck the hours on a great bell. It also
contained other bells. This tower was razed by the Roundhead mob about
1650. Later a dial with the motto "Discite justiam monite" was placed on
the site. The bell "Great Tom" was given to St. Paul's about the beginning of
the 18th Century. The present Westminster clock is made after plans by E.

B. Denison (Sir Edmund Beckett) and made by E. J. Dent. The bell is called
"Big Ben." It is claimed to be the best timekeeper of its kind in the world. It
was for use in this clock that Denison invented his gravity escapement.
Wimborne—A very old clock at Wimborne in Dorsetshire, much like the
Wells Cathedral clock. By some authorities believed also to have been
planned by Peter Lightfoot.
Clock-Setters—During the early history of turret clocks, for each one was
employed a caretaker called the "setter." That such an official was needed
indicates that they were more or less undependable.
Cock—A horizontal bracket. See: Balance Cock; Escape Cock; Pendulum
Cock; Potance.
Collet—A collar or flange on a cylindrical piece of metal. Any part of such
cylinder of greater diameter than the rest. Sometimes of the same piece of
metal; sometimes fitted friction tight upon it.
Compensation—The provision made in a clock or watch to counteract the
expansion and contraction due to variations of temperature. In the clock it is
applied to the pendulum; in the watch to the balance.
Compensation Balance—A balance corrected
for errors caused by variations in temperature.
The type in most general use was invented by
Thomas Earnshaw in the second half of the
18th century. The double rim of this balance is
constructed of brass and steel soldered together
in the form of a cut ring, the brass on the
outside. When heat, elongating the balance
ring, causes it to vibrate more slowly, the
brass, expanding more than the steel, bends the
free ends of the cut rim toward the center, thus
decreasing the diameter of the balance and quickening the vibration. On the
other hand, when cold, contracting the ring tends to quicken the vibration of
the balance, the contraction of the brass rim draws the free end outward,
making the diameter larger and the vibration slower in consequence. The
compensation balance is also made with brass as the inner metal and
aluminum outside.

Compensation Curb—A laminated bar of brass and steel or aluminum and
brass fixed at one end, the free end carrying the curb pins that regulate the
length of the balance spring. Common in old watches but not now in use.
Compensation Pendulum—A pendulum so constructed that the distance
between the point of suspension and the center of oscillation remains
constant in all temperatures. See: Pendulum, Gridiron and Pendulum,
Mercurial Compensation.
Contrate Wheel—A wheel whose cogs
are parallel to its axis and whose axis is at
right angles to the axis of the wheel into
which it gears. A crown wheel.
Corrosion—The eating or wearing away
of metals by slow degrees through
chemical action.
Countersink—To enlarge the outer end of
a hole for the reception of the head of a
screw, bolt, etc. The term is also applied to the tool with which the
countersink is formed.
Coventry—A municipal, county, and parliamentary borough of
Warwickshire, England. One of the important watchmaking centers of Great
Britain.
Crown Wheel—A wheel whose teeth project at right angles to the plane of
the wheel. A contrate wheel. The escape wheel of the verge escapement is
an illustration.
Crutch—A light rod in a clock descending from the pallet arbor and ending
in a fork which embraces the pendulum rod. It transmits the motion of the
pallet to the pendulum.
Ctesibus—A famous Greek mechanician who lived in Alexandria about 130
B. C. Although his was not the first clepsydra as is claimed by some it was
an ingenious and interesting one. Believed to have first applied toothed
wheels to clepsydrae about 140 B. C.
Curb Pins—See Banking Pins.

Cusin, Charles—A watchmaker from Autun, Burgundy, who laid the
foundation for the Swiss watch industry in Geneva in 1587. It grew very
slowly at first—in 1687 having only one hundred watchmakers with three
hundred assistants. In 1760 there were at Geneva eight hundred
watchmakers with 5,000 to 6,000 assistants.
Custer, Jacob D.—(1809-1879.) A Pennsylvania clockmaker in 1831; he
was one of the early makers of watches in America in 1840. However, his
work was not important commercially, for he produced only about a dozen
watches. A very ingenious man, who, it is said, made everything from a
steam engine to his own shoes. He made hundreds of the clock movements
which at that period were used to revolve the lanterns in lighthouses.
Cycle of the Sun—A period of twenty-eight years, after which the days of
the week again fall on the same days of the month as during the first year of
the former cycle. It has no relation to the sun's course but was invented for
the purpose of finding out the days of the month on which the Sundays fall
during each year of the cycle. Cycles of the sun date from nine years before
the Christian era.
Cycloid—A curve generated by a given point in the circumference of a
circle which is rolled along a straight line always in the same place.
Example: The curve traced by any point in the rim of a wheel which travels
in a straight line along a level road.
Cylinder Escapement—See: Escapement, Cylinder.
Cylinder Plugs—Plugs fitted into the ends of the cylinder of a cylinder
escapement. Their outer extremities are formed into the pivots on which the
cylinder rotates.

amaskeen—To decorate a metal by inlaying other metals or jewels, or
D by etching designs upon its surface. To be distinguished from snailing,
with which it is often confounded.
Day—The time of one complete revolution of the earth on its axis. The
actual length of this day is continually changing owing to the eccentricity of
the earth's orbit and the angle of the ecliptic. The mean solar day is 24
hours. The sidereal day is 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.099 seconds.

Day, Nautical—The nautical day begins
when the sun is on the meridian and eight
bells are struck. The day is divided into
"afternoon watch" or four hours, two "dog
watches" of two hours each, then "middle
watch," "night watch," "morning watch"
and "forenoon watch," each of four hours, completing the day.
Denison, Edmund Beckett—Sir Edmund Beckett—Lord Grimthorpe. Born
1816. A lawyer by profession, and the inventor of the gravity escapement
for turret clocks; also an authoritative writer on horological subjects. He
designed and planned the Westminster clock said to be the best timekeeper
of its kind in the world. Died 1905.
Dennison, Aaron L.—Born in Freeport, Me., in 1812. Died Birmingham,
England, January 9, 1898. At eighteen he was apprenticed to a watchmaker.
Later in working at the trade, he was impressed with the inaccuracies which
existed in the best handmade watches. This, with a visit to the Springfield
Armory, gave him his idea of machine-made watches with interchangeable
parts. He interested Edward Howard in the project, and having found the
needed capital they started in the business and laid the foundation of what is
now the Waltham Watch Company. Dennison has been called the "father of
American Watchmaking" tho there seems ground for the claim that he
shares that honor with Edward Howard.
Depthing—The technical name for the proper adjusting or spacing of the
gearing in a watch.
Detent—The device which halts, and releases, at the proper instant the
escapement of a clock or chronometer. See: Escapement.
de Vick, de Wyck, or de Wieck, Henry—A German clockmaker who, in
1364, made the first turret clock of which reliable information and
description remains. The clock was made for Charles V. See: Clocks,
Interesting Old—De Vick's.
Dial—Commonly called the face of the watch—made of gold or silver or
other metal or of enamel, with the required figures—in the United States
one to twelve upon it in a contrasting color. See also, Sun-dial.

Dial Feet—Short wires soldered to the back of the dial of a watch or clock
which hold it in place by fitting into holes in the pillar plate.
Dial of Ahaz—A sun-dial belonging to Ahaz, King of Judea 742-727 B. C.,
mention of which occurs twice in the Scriptures—II Kings, XX: 9-11, and
Isaiah XXXVIII: 8. It is believed that one of his Babylonian astrologers
constructed it for him.
Dial Plate—See Lower Plate.
Dial, Sun—See Sun-dial.
Dial Wheels—The wheels constituting the motion work of a watch.
Diurnal—In an astronomical sense, pertaining to a period covering a mean
solar day. See: Solar Time.
Dog Screw—A screw with an eccentric head used to attach a watch
movement to a dome case.
Dog-Watch—A nautical term for two daily two-hour periods of watching
aboard ship. The first begins at 4 P. M., the other at 6 P. M.
Dolmen—A sacred instrument used for astronomical purposes at certain
critical periods of the year; formed of four stones at the cardinal points and
a leaning stone crossing diagonally and forming with the east stone a sacred
"creep-way." The solar hours were indicated by the shadow of the leaning
stone touching various prominent points or edges. One at Camp, England, is
prehistoric.
Dome—The inner case of a watch which snaps on the band of a case.
Dome-Case—A case in which the inner case or dome snaps to the band of
the case.
Dondi, Giacomo—Born at Padua, Italy, in 1298. In 1344 he set up at Padua
a famous clock which became a model for later clocks and which earned for
him the surname, "Orologio."
Double Bottom Case—A watch case in which the inner cover or bottom is
made solid with the middle. The vogue in English cases for a long time;
now almost obsolete.

Double-Sunk Dial—A dial in which there are two sinks; one for the hour
hand, and a deeper one for the seconds hand.
Draw—1. The force which holds the lever against its bank, due chiefly to
the angle of the locking face of the pallet stone. 2. The angle of the locking
faces of pallets in the lever escapement.
Driver—Of two wheels working together, the one which imparts the power.
The driven wheel is termed the follower.
Driving Wheel—In a clock the wheel on the main arbor which drives the
whole train.
Drop—That part of the motion of the escape wheel when it is not in contact
with the pallet.
Drum—The cylinder, or barrel, on the main arbor in a clock on which the
driving cord winds, raising the weight, when the clock is being wound.
Dummy Watch—(Fausse Montre.) About 1770 it became the fashion to
wear two watches. But because two real watches were too expensive for
most people, the custom grew up for having one sham watch—usually worn
on the right side. These were called "dummy watches" or "fausse montres."

arnshaw, Thomas—1749-1829. An eminent English watchmaker who

E invented the spring detent escapement and the compensation balance,
both essentially the same as are now used in chronometers. He first
soldered brass and steel together for the balance instead of riveting them.
East, Edward—Watchmaker to Charles I and an eminent horologist. He
was one of the ten original assistants named in the charter of the
Clockmakers' Company and at once took a leading part in their
proceedings. He was elected master in 1664 and 1682. He was the only
treasurer ever appointed by that company. He died probably about 1693.
East's watches were often presented as prizes by Charles in tennis
tournaments.
Edward VI—King of England from 1546 to 1553. Said to have been the
first Englishman to wear a watch.

Electric Clock—A clock in which the pallets moved electrically from a
distant mechanism drive the escape wheel and the hands.
Ecliptic—That plane passing through the center of the sun in which lies the
orbit of the earth. Also used to designate the apparent path of the sun in the
heavens.
Elgin—A city in Illinois, U. S. A., in which is located the Elgin National
Watch Company—one of the largest factories in the United States.
End-Shake—Freedom of pivots to move endways. Necessary in a watch or
clock because there is no force to spare and a tight pivot would stop the
movement.
End-Stone—A small disc of jewel against which the end of a pivot sets. See
Capped Jewel.
End-Stop—In a watch the same as end-stone.
Engaging Friction—Friction which results when the teeth of two wheels
gearing together come into action before reaching the line of centers—that
is, a line drawn from center to center of the gearing wheels.
Engine-Turning—A pattern of curved lines cut into metal for decoration.
Introduced about 1770 by Francis Guerint of Geneva. The earliest
specimens were cut very deep but shallower cutting soon became the rule.
Engraving—A form of ornamenting metals in which the design is cut into
the metal. In "Champ-leve" engraving the ground is cut away leaving the
design in relief.
Epact—The excess in time of the solar year over the period of 12 lunar
months, amounting to about 11 days. The new moons will thus fall about 11
days earlier in each succeeding year. In a calendar so arranged 30 days are
taken off every fourth year, as an intercalary month, the moon having
revolved once in that time, and the three days remaining would be the epact.
The epact thus continues to vary until at the end of nineteen years the new
moons return as at first.
Epicycloid—A curve generated by any point in the circumference of a
circle as it rolls on the outside of the circumference of a fixed circle. This
curve is the best for the face of the teeth of a driving wheel.

Equation Clocks—An obsolete form of clock which showed true solar or
sun-dial time instead of mean solar, or average time.
Equation of Time—The difference between true time and mean, or
averaged time. There are four days in the Gregorian year when the true time
and mean time agree, and the equation of time is zero: These are December
24, April 15, June 15, and August 31. Between the first two dates and the
last two dates, true time is earlier than mean time; for the other two periods
of the year it is later.
Escape Cock—The bracket which supports the upper ends of the escape
wheel and pallet staff arbors.
Escapement—The device in a watch or clock which regulates the motion of
the train thus distributing the power of the main-spring. It communicates
the motive power to the balance or pendulum. Escapements are of three
classes: recoil, dead, or dead-beat; and detached.
Escapement, Anchor—The recoil escapement,
invented by Hooke, used in most house clocks. A
name also applied to one kind of Lever
Escapement with an unusually wide impulse pin.
The recoil escapement is one in which each tooth
of the escape wheel, after it comes to rest, is
moved backward by the pallets. Altho one of the
easiest escapements to set out correctly the pallets
are often improperly formed making an
escapement which gives indifferent service. As a
timekeeper the anchor escapement is inferior to
the dead-beat escapement.
Escapement, Chronometer—A detached
escapement in which the escape wheel is
locked on a stone carried in a detent, and
in which the teeth of the escape wheel
impart an impulse to a pallet on the
balance staff with every alternate
vibration. Used in Marine Chronometers.

Escapement, Crown-Wheel—Of the recoil type, and the earliest known
escapement; to be found in Henry de Wyck's clock. Not suitable for
watches. Practically the same principle as Verge or Vertical Escapement
used in watches for so many years.
Escapement, Cylinder or Horizontal—
Invented by Thomas Tompion in 1695—later
improved and brought into general use by
Graham. It dispensed with the then common
vertical crown-wheel—hence the term
"horizontal" and permitted thinner watches.
This escapement is frictional, the balance
being carried on a hollow cylinder whose
bore is large enough to admit the teeth of the
escape wheel. The cylinder is cut away
where the teeth enter and the impulse is
given by the wedge shaped teeth striking
against the edge of the cylinder as they enter and leave. Used at this time in
the cheaper Swiss watches.
Escapement,
Dead-Beat—
Any
escapement
in which the
pallet face is
so formed
that the
escape wheel
remains dead
or motionless
during the supplementary arc of the balance or swing of the pendulum. As
invented by George Graham, the wheel is much the same as the wheel in
the anchor escapement, the difference lying in the shape of the pallets. Each
pallet has a driving face and a sliding face. It is so arranged that the impulse
is given the pendulum at the midpoint of its swing thus allowing the swing
to adapt itself to the impulse and keep the time constant. The pallets are

faced with jewels so that there is slight friction. Used in high grade clocks
such as regulators and astronomical clocks.
Escapement, Detached—Any escapement in which the balance or
pendulum is for some time during each vibration free from the pressure of
the train. Detached escapements are used in chronometers, most watches
and in turret clocks. They are of value in any movement where the motive
power varies greatly—hence in turret clocks. Examples: Chronometer,
lever, and gravity escapements.
Escapement, Double Three-Legged Gravity—Invented
in 1854 by E. B. Denison, Esq., for the great clock at the
Houses of Parliament. It is the best escapement for very
large clocks where the hands are exposed to the action of
the wind and snow, because it admits of great driving
power in the movement without its sensibly affecting the
escapement as would be the case in the dead-beat type.
The impulse to the pendulum is given by the weight of
the lever arms falling through a given distance and is
therefore constant. This escapement consists of two
gravity impulse pallets pivoted in a line with the bending
point of the pendulum. There is a locking wheel made of
two thin plates of three teeth each. Between these plates
are the three pins that lift the pallets. The locking is
effected by blocks screwed to the front of one pallet and
the back of the other. Impulse is given by the pallets in turn striking the
pendulum rod. The pendulum rod serves to unlock the wheel. The
arrangement is such that the lifting pins have a little free run each time.
Since the pallets are always lifted the same distance they give a constant
impulse to the pendulum.
Escapement, Duplex—Invented by Hook; later improved by Tyrer. Very
accurate but as originally made was affected by any sudden motion, and
hence of little use in watches. The escape wheel has two sets of teeth. Those
farthest from the center lock the wheel by pressing on a hollow ruby
cylinder fitted round the balance staff and notched so as to permit the
passing of the teeth as the balance moves in a direction opposite to the
wheel's motion. The second set stand up from the face of the wheel and one
gives impulse to the pallet every time a tooth leaves the notch. This is not a

detached escapement, but there is little friction.
As improved this escapement was used in the
famous Waterbury watches.
Escapement, Foliot—A form of escapement
actuated by a foliot balance. See Foliot.
Escapement, Four-Legged
Gravity—Invented by E. B.
Denison (Sir Edmund
Beckett). The same in principle as the Double Three-
Legged escapement, only it has but one escape wheel
with four teeth or legs instead of two wheels with three
legs each. The wheel has two sets of lifting pins—one
acting on each pallet. Occasionally used in regulators
and other clocks with a seconds pendulum, but of
doubtful, if any, advantage over the Graham dead-beat
escapement.
Escapement, Frictional—Any escapement in which the
balance is never free from the escapement. Examples:
The Cylinder, Duplex and Verge types.
Escapement, Gravity—An escapement which gives impulse to the
pendulum by means of a weight falling through a constant distance. Of use
in turret and other exposed clocks where the hands' movements are affected
by wind, rain, and snow. See subtitles under these headings: Double Three-
legged Gravity; Single Three-legged Gravity; Four-legged Gravity; Six-
legged Gravity.
Escapement Lever—Invented by Thomas
Mudge about 1765. It is the preferred
escapement for watches because of the
certainty of its performance. Possibly
inferior to the chronometer escapement as
a timekeeper. Its most noticeable defect is
the necessity of applying oil to the pallets,
the thickening of which affects the action.
There are many other kinds of lever escapements. The Mudge escapement
was essentially like the modern Double Roller. The connection between the

balance and the escape wheel is made by a lever to which the pallets are
fastened, and into the forked end of which plays the ruby pin which is
carried on a roller on the same staff as the balance. Each pallet has an
impulse face and a locking face. The impulse is given by the escape wheel
tooth striking the impulse face of a pallet and is communicated to the
balance by the lever, raised by the pallet's movement striking the ruby pin in
the roller. This ruby pin also serves to unlock the pallets by causing the
lever to lift them in turn. This escapement is of the detached type. The
action of the lever is kept within the desired limits by banking pins.
Escapement, Lever—Club Tooth—An escapement like the Table Roller in
the action of the lever and roller, but differs in the pallet action. The impulse
planes are partly on the teeth and partly on the pallet. This is the standard
watch escapement of today.
Escapement, Crank Lever—An escapement with a small roller having a
tooth like a pinion leaf projecting from its circumference. This tooth acts in
a square notch cut in the end of the lever. The lever is formed like a fork the
two points of which act as safety pins against the edge of the roller to
prevent the lever from getting out of action with the roller. It necessitated
very careful construction and was not so good as the Double Roller or Table
Roller.
Escapement, Lever—Double Roller—This
escapement has two rollers on the balance staff, the
large one carrying the balance staff and the small one
used for a safety roller only. The best form of lever
escapement but more delicate, expensive, and difficult
to make than the Table Roller; hence not so much
used as the latter.
Escapement, Patent Detached Lever—Introduced in
1766 by Thomas Mudge, but neglected for years
thereafter even by Mudge himself. It was in some of
its parts the model of the best form of lever escapement—the Double
Roller. The first pallets had no "draw" on the locking faces which rendered
the escapement peculiarly sensitive to jolt and jar. This may have suggested
to Mudge the addition of the small roller, whose worth has been since
unquestionably demonstrated.

Escapement, Lever—Pin-Pallet—A lever escapement with round pins for
pallets, and the inclines on the escape teeth. Used in alarm clocks.
Escapement, Rack-Lever—Invented by Abbe Hautefeuille in 1734.
Afterward made and improved by Berthoud and by Peter Litherland, who
obtained a patent for it in 1794. It consisted of anchor shaped pallets on
whose axis was fixed a rack, or segment of a toothed wheel which geared
into a pinion on the axis of the balance. The balance was thus never free
from the train and good timekeeping was made impossible. It is not now in
use.

Escapement, Lever-Resilient—Invented by F. J.
Cole about 1870. A form of lever escapement
designed to obviate the evils of overbanking.
The points of the escape-wheel teeth are bent
toward the locking faces of the pallets, the bend
in the tooth acts as the banking and no pins are
required. It was abandoned because expensive to
make and the danger of overbanking is not
considerable.
Escapement, Lever—Table Roller—Excellent and very simple and the
most common form today. It differs from the crank lever only in the action
of the roller. The impulse pin instead of projecting beyond the edge of the
roller is set within its circumference and raised above its plane.
Escapement, Lever—Two Pin—A form of Lever Escapement in which the
unlocking and impulse actions were formerly divided between two small
gold pins in the roller and one in the lever. Later the two roller pins were
discarded, and one broad jewel pin substituted.
Escapement—Pin Wheel—Invented by Lepaute about
1750. Similar in action to the dead-beat. A good and
simple escapement for large clocks. The impulse is
given the pendulum through the pallets by pins which
stand out from the face of the escape wheel. Lepaute
made these pins semi-circular and had his pallets of
equal length acting on opposite sides of the wheel. Sir
E. Beckett cut away part of the front of the pins which
allows the pallets to act as in the diagram. The resting
faces are arcs of a circle. It has been superseded by the
gravity escapement for large clocks and is inferior to the dead-beat for
small.
Escapement, Recoil—Any escapement in which the pallets actually force
the escape wheel to turn backwards a trifle with each beat of the balance.
Cheap and easy to make but inferior as timekeepers to the detached or dead-
beat types.

Escapement, Right-Angled—A lever escapement so
set that lines drawn between the centers of the
balance, pallets, and escape wheel would form a right
angle. See Escapement, straight-line.
Escapement, Single-Beat—An escapement such as
the Duplex, or Chronometer, whose escape wheel
moves only at alternate beats of the balance or
pendulum.
Escapement, Single
Three-Legged
Gravity—Consists
of two pallets and
one three-legged locking wheel. Instead of
the three pins for lifting as in the Double
Three-Legged Gravity escapement there is
a triangular steel block which acts against
large friction rollers, pivoted one on each
pallet.
Escapement, Six-
Legged Gravity—
A modification of
the three-legged gravity escapement. The locking
wheel has six teeth. One of the pallet arms is
neutral and gives no impulse, hence impulse is
given only at each alternate vibration. A much
lighter driving weight than for the Double Three-
legged Gravity escapement will suffice for this,
since the rotations of the escape wheel required are
only half as many.
Escapement, Straight-Line—An escapement of the
lever type in which the escape wheel, pallets and
balance are all in a straight line; an arrangement
favored by the Swiss.
Escapement, Verge—Also called "Crown-wheel," or Vertical escapement.
The earliest form of escapement on record. The inventor is not known, but

the escapement was used on de Vick's
clock. (1364.) It was used almost
exclusively up to 1750 in spite of its
manifest inaccuracy. The verge is a
frictional recoil escapement. It consists of
a crown-wheel, with eleven, thirteen, or
fifteen teeth, shaped like those of a rip saw,
and with its axis set at right angles to the
pallets axis, or verge, which carries the balance. The verge is a slender
cylinder as small as compatible with the required strength, from which
project the pallets, two flat steel "flags"—at an angle to each other varying
from 90° to 115°. The wheel runs in a watch in a plane at right angles to the
face. Any variation in the motive power causes a variation in the arc of the
balance swing. Therefore, since the time of oscillation depends on the arc of
the swing, the time-keeping qualities were directly affected. This gave rise
to the invention of the stack-freed and fusee, both contrivances to equalize
the power of the mainspring. In spite of the many defects the verge
escapement was one of the great inventions because the first escapement,
and was used for centuries before superior kinds were devised. It
necessitated thick and bulky watches.
Escapement, Virgule—An early form of
escapement invented about 1660 by Abbe
Hautefeuille. Its action can be readily
understood from the diagram.
Escape Pinion—The pinion on the escape-wheel
arbor.
Escape Wheel—The last wheel of a train: it
gives impulse to the balance, indirectly. Also called scape wheel. Easily
identified by teeth resembling those of a circular saw.

ace—1. Of a watch or clock is the dial. 2. Of the tooth of a wheel, that
F portion beyond the pitch line.
Facio, Nicolas—A Geneva watchmaker who invented the art of piercing
jewels for use in watches, and in May, 1705, obtained a patent therefor in
London. In December of the same year when he petitioned for a more

extended patent he was opposed by the Clockmakers' Company, who
produced in evidence proof that Facio was not first in this use of jewels, in
an old watch of Ignatius Huggeford's with an amethyst mounted on the cock
of the balance wheel. Facio's petition was denied. It was later discovered
that Huggeford's jewel had nothing to do with the mechanism of the watch.
Favre, Perret E.—In 1876 the chief commissioner in the Swiss Department
and a member at that time of the International Jury on Watches at the
Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia. On his return home he was very
emphatic in his endorsement of the American method of manufacture as
compared to the Swiss.
Fitch E. C.—Made president of the Waltham Watch Co., in 1886. His long
experience in watch case and movement making and his commercial
training made his judgment on matters relating to watchmaking of value.
He was the inventor of the screw bezel case.
Flank—The flank of a wheel or pinion is the part lying between the pitch
circle and the center.
Flirt—Any device for causing the sudden movement of a mechanism.
Fly—A speed regulating device or governor consisting of a fan or two
vanes upon a rotating shaft. Used in the striking part of clocks. By some
believed to have been used on the earliest clocks—before the verge
escapement—to check a too rapid descent of the weight.
Fly Pinion—The pinion in a clock that carries the fly: a part of the striking
mechanism.
Fob—Properly a watch pocket in the waistband of trousers. Commonly
applied to the end of a chain or ribbon which is attached to the watch and
hangs free from the pocket. One of the early examples was attached to a
watch made for Oliver Cromwell in 1625 by John Midwall in Fleet Street.
Foliot—A straight armed balance with weights used as one of the earliest
clock regulators. De Vick's clock is one example of it.
Foliot Balance—See Foliot.
Follower—Of two wheels geared together, the one to which the driver
imparts motion is called the follower.

Fork—The fork
shaped end of the
lever into which
plays the roller
jewel.
Fourth Wheel—
The wheel in a
watch that drives
the escape pinion
and to whose arbor
the seconds hand
is attached.
Frame—The plates or plate and bars of a watch or
clock which support the pivots of the train.
Free Spring—A balance spring not controlled by curb pins. Used in
chronometers and other fine time pieces where the spring is an overcoil.
Fromanteel, Ahasuerus—A clockmaker of Dutch extraction—maker of
steeple clocks in East Smithfield. The family of Fromanteels were
celebrated as having been the first to introduce the pendulum clocks into
England. Their claim has since been contested in favor of Harris and
Hooke.
Full Plate—A model in which the top plate is circular in form—the
balance being above this plate. Used now in 18 size watches for railroad
and other hard usage. They are made only in limited quantities.
Fusee—Invented by Jacob Zech of Prague
about 1525. Consists of a specially
grooved cone-shaped pulley interposed
between the mainspring barrel and the
great or driving wheel of a watch or clock.
The connection between the barrel and
fusee was first made by a cord or catgut,
later by a chain. In winding the spring the
cord is drawn from the barrel on to the
fusee—the first coil on the larger end.

Thus the mainspring when fully wound uncoils the cord first from the
smaller end of the fusee; and as it runs down gets the benefit of increased
leverage by reason of the greater diameter of the lower part of the fusee. An
excellent adjustment of the pressure on the center pinion can be made in
this way. The fusee has been abandoned in watches to allow of thinness, but
is still used in chronometers and clocks.
Fusee Cap—A thin steel plate with a projecting nose on the smaller end of
the fusee: a part of the mechanism to stop the fusee when the last coil of the
chain is wound thereon.
Fusee Chain—A very delicate steel chain connecting the barrel with the
fusee of a watch, chronometer or clock. It replaced the catgut originally
used and was first introduced by Gruet of Geneva about 1664.
Fusee Sink—The sink cut in the top plate of a watch to give space for the
fusee.

alileo, Galilei—Commonly called "Galileo." A famous Italian scientist
G born in 1564 who discovered, among many other things, the
isochronism of the pendulum vibrating through long or short arcs. The
story goes that he noticed that a swinging chandelier in a certain cathedral
took the same length of time to each vibration whether in long or short arcs
—timing them by his pulse. He seems never to have applied this principle
to clocks, although he issued an essay on the subject in 1639.
Galileo, Vincentis—Son of the great astronomer, born about 1600. He
aided his father in experiments and gave special attention to the application
of the pendulum to clocks. He is claimed by some to have been the first to
so apply the pendulum, in 1649, but this is disputed in favor of Richard
Harris of London.
Geneva—A city in Switzerland in which watchmaking was first established
in that country. It is the center of the "hand" industry, and the city is
honeycombed with garret-workers—so-called—making parts.
Gerbert (Pope Sylvester II)—Born in Belliac, Auvergne, in 920. In 990
Gerbert made some sort of a clock which attained wide fame. Some
authorities claim that it was a clock moved by weights and wheels and some
even claim for it a verge escapement. On the other hand, other authorities

state positively that that story is a myth and that Gerbert's horologe was a
sun-dial. It seems pretty well accepted that there was no escapement used,
however, until more than two centuries after Gerbert's time.
German Silver—An alloy of copper, nickel, and zinc—copper
predominating. Really a white brass.
Gimbal—A contrivance resembling a universal joint permitting a suspended
object to tip freely in all directions. Marine chronometers are supported in
their cases or boxes by gimbals. It was first applied to chronometers by
Huyghens.
Gnomon—A simple and probably the most
ancient instrument for marking time consisting
simply of a staff or pillow fixed perpendicularly
in a sunny place—time being reckoned by the
changing length of the shadow or by its angular
movement. In more recent times the title
"gnomon" was applied to the style of the sun-
dial.
Gnomonics—The art of constructing and setting
sun-dials taught especially in the seventeenth century.
Goddard, Luther—Born at Shrewsbury, Mass., February 28, 1762—Died
1842. He was the first American to manufacture watches. He began in 1809
but unable to compete as to price with cheap foreign watches, retired after
making about five hundred.
Going-Barrel—The Swiss early
abandoned the fusee in watches and cut
teeth around the outside of the main-spring
barrel so as to drive the train direct. Such
an arrangement is called a going-barrel. It
made possible a thinner and much simpler
watch. American makers quickly adopted
this device, but the English long clung to
the fusee. It is sometimes claimed that the
French were the first to adopt the going-
barrel.

Going Fusee—A fusee with maintaining power attachment, so that the
watch does not stop while being wound. Invented by Harrison.
Golden Number—Meton, an Athenian astronomer, discovered about 432 B.
C. that every nineteen years the new and full moons returned on the same
days of the month. This period is the cycle of the moon, called the Golden
Number because the Greeks, to honor it, had it written in letters of gold.
Anno Domini, the year of our Lord, fell on the second year of a lunar cycle.
Hence, to find the Golden Number for any year, add 1 to the date (A. D.)
and divide by 19. The remainder is the Golden Number for the year.
Gold-Filled—A sheet of brass sandwiched between two thin plates of gold
and all brazed together. Gold-filled watch cases were introduced in
America. They give very good wear.
Graham, George, F. R. S.—An English watchmaker and astronomer, born
in Cumberland in 1675. Died 1751. He was an apprentice of Tompion and
succeeded to Tompion's reputation as the best watchmaker of his time. He
invented the mercurial compensation pendulum, the dead-beat escapement,
and perfected the cylinder escapement of Tompion and left it in practically
its present form. He made ornamentation distinctly subsidiary to use. He
was master of the Clockmakers' Company in 1722-23. He was buried with
Tompion in Westminster Abbey.
Great Tom—The great bell which struck the hours on the first clock at
Westminster. It was afterwards transferred to St. Paul's.
Great Wheel—In a fusee watch the toothed wheel which transmits the
power from the fusee to the center pinion. In a going-barrel watch it is
represented by the toothed portion of the barrel drum.
Greenwich Observatory—(England) Royal observatory founded 1675 to
promote astronomy and navigation. There is at this observatory a standard
motor clock which is the center of a system of electrically controlled clocks
scattered over the Kingdom, and which thus keeps official time as our
Naval Observatory clock does for the United States.
Grimthorpe—See Denison, E. B.
Gruen, Dietrich—A Swiss watchmaker who with his son Fred first
succeeded in making a very thin watch. The Gruen watch factory at
Cincinnati, Ohio, is unique in this country. The buildings and surroundings

resemble those of Switzerland, and the method of manufacture embodies
more handwork than is common in the American system.
Gruet—A Swiss who introduced chains for the fusee instead of catgut cord,
in 1664. They are still used for marine chronometers, some clocks, and the
few fusee watches now made.
Guard Pin—A pin in a lever escapement which prevents the pallets leaving
the escape wheel when the hands of a watch are turned back. Also known as
the "safety pin."
Guild or Gild—An association of people occupied in kindred pursuits for
mutual protection and aid. Watch and clockmakers belonged to the
Blacksmiths' Guild in England until 1631, when the Clockmakers'
Company was formed. In France the Clockmakers' Guild was powerful in
1544.

air-Spring—Said by some to be a distinctly American term for the
H balance spring of a watch. But Wood (English) uses it in his
"Curiosities of Clocks and Watches," 1866. However, it is not in
common use outside of America. It is thought to have originated from the
fact that in early times attempts were made to utilize hog-bristle for the
balance spring.
Half Plate—A watch in which the top plate covers but half of the pillar
plate, the fourth wheel pinion being carried in a cock to allow the use of a
larger balance. Now obsolete or nearly so. Replaced by the bridge-model.
Hall Mark—A stamp placed upon gold and silver articles by government
officials after the metal therein has been assayed.
Hands—The metal pointers which, moved by the train, indicate the time by
pointing to the figures on the dial. At present there are always two, the hour
and minute hands and frequently a seconds hand also. Clocks at first were
made with only the hour hand; the minute hand was introduced when the
use of the pendulum made timekeeping sufficiently accurate for the
indication of such small divisions.
Hanging Barrel—A going-barrel with its arbor supported only at the upper
end.

Harris, Richard—An English clockmaker for whom it is claimed that he
made the first pendulum clock—set up at St. Paul's, Covent Garden, in
1641. Most authorities agree, however, that this honor belongs to
Huyghens.
Harrison, John—An English mechanician born at Faulby in Yorkshire in
1693. He made many improvements in the mechanism of clocks, the
greatest of which was the compound pendulum. He won in 1761 a reward
offered by Parliament in 1714 for an instrument that would determine
longitude within thirty marine miles. Harrison's chronometer gave it within
eighteen miles. He invented the going fusee, the gridiron compensation
pendulum and suggested the idea for the compensation balance, afterward
worked out by other watchmakers. Died 1776.
Hautefeuille, John—(Abbe.) Born 1647. Died 1724. He disputed
successfully Huyghens' claim to a prior invention of the steel balance
spring. He is also credited with the invention about 1722 of the rack-lever
escapement.
Heart-Piece—The heart-shaped cam on the
center-seconds wheel of a chronograph, which
causes the hand to fly back to zero.
Hele, Peter—(See Henlein, Peter.) Some
historians credit invention of first watch to Peter
Hele. There is no doubt, however, that Hele and
Henlein were one and the same. Preponderance
of authority favors "Henlein" as the correct
spelling of the name.
Helical—Following the course of a helix or spiral.
Heliotropion—See "Polos."
Hemicycle—Form of sun-dial in which the shadow of a vertical pointer or
"gnomon" is cast upon and moves around the inner surface of a half globe
or sphere. Supposed to have been invented about 350 B. C. (See Sun-Dial).
Vitruvius, the Roman Engineer, ascribes invention to the Babylonian priest
and astronomer, Berosus.
Henlein, Peter—Sometimes called Peter Hele. A clockmaker of
Nuremberg, who is believed to have made the first portable (pocket) clock

or watch sometime early in the sixteenth century. Born 1480. Died about
1540. His clock was round, driven by a spring and had small wheels of
steel. It was much larger than present day watches.
Hollow Pinion—A pinion bored through the center. The center pinion in
many watches is hollow.
"Hon-Woo-Et-Low" or Copper Jars Dropping Water—A form of
clepsydra at Canton, China, said to be between 3000 and 4000 years old. It
consists of four copper jars arranged on steps. Each jar drops water into the
one below it until the last one, in which a bamboo float, indicates the time
in a rude way.
Hooke, Robert, M. D.—An English physician-philosopher born on the Isle
of Wight in 1635. His accomplishments were numerous. He claimed to have
discovered the isochronism of the balance spring and its application to
watches, though this was also claimed by Huyghens. He invented a
pendulum timekeeper for finding the longitude at sea; devised the first
wheel-cutting engine about 1670; and he invented the anchor escapement
for clocks. His studies and inventions covered a wide field. He died in
1702.
Horologe, (Orologe), (Horologium)—A general term applied
indiscriminately in old writings to any mechanism for measuring time.
Horological Institute—British—An association of watchmakers founded
in 1858 for the purpose of advancing the horological arts.
Horological Periodicals, American—American Jeweler, (Monthly),
Chicago, Ill.; Goldsmith and Silversmith, (Monthly), New Haven, Conn.;
Jeweler's Circular, (Weekly), New York,; Keystone (Monthly), Philadelphia,
Pa.; Manufacturing Jeweler, Providence, R. I.; Mid-Continent Jeweler,
Kansas City, Mo.; National Jeweler, (Monthly), Chicago, Ill.; Northwestern
Jeweler, St. Paul, Minn.; Pacific Goldsmith, (Monthly), San Francisco, Cal.;
Trader and Canadian Jeweler, Toronto, Canada.
Horologium—See Horologe.
Horology-The science of time-measurement or of the construction of time
pieces.

Hour—Now consisting of sixty minutes or one twenty-fourth of an
equinoctial day. Formerly one twelfth of the time between sunrise and
sunset, and one twelfth of the time between sunset and sunrise; hence of
different lengths for day and night in the different seasons. This required
much adjustment of clocks; and automatic devices for such adjustment were
in great demand. A standard hour of uniform length for all times and
seasons was not adopted in Paris—the last place to change—until 1816.
Hour-Glass—A device for measuring hours. It has
two cone-shaped superimposed glass globes
connected at their apexes through a small opening.
The glass contains just that quantity of sand, or
mercury, as will flow in one hour through the
opening from the upper globe to the lower. When it
has run through the glass is reversed. See: Sand
Glass. Like the sun-dial and the clepsydra, the hour-
glass is older than we know. Its use probably
followed close upon that of the clepsydra, or may
even have preceded it in dry countries like Egypt and
Babylonia, where sand was all about and water was
not a thing to waste. Of its original forms there is no
authentic record. Dry sand does not, like water, run
faster or slower through a given opening according
to the pressure from above; its rate is the same whether the upper glass is
full or nearly empty. Also the hour-glass never needs to be refilled, but only
to be reversed, and the same sand used over and over again. On the other
hand, its convenience diminished as its size increased. It was too clumsy for
use if made large enough to run without attention for more than an hour or
two; and in so large a glass there was more danger that the sand, however
dry, might cake up and stop running. It must somehow have been
transparent for convenient reading, because sand can register the time only
by its flow: it cannot be made to raise a float or work a pointer. But the
Egyptians very early learned to manufacture glass, and there were other
substances. A legend ascribes the invention of the sand-glass to Luitprand, a
Carthusian monk of the Eighth Century A. D. But this, if there is any truth
in the story at all, must have been some improvement or reinvention after
the forgetfulness of the Dark Ages. The device is plainly shown in Greek
sculptures antedating the Christian era. Nowadays the sand-glass has pretty

much disappeared, except as a kitchen timepiece for boiling eggs and the
like.
Hour Hand—The hand of a watch or clock which indicates the hour: for
long after clocks were first made, the only hand provided.
Hour Wheel—The wheel which revolves on the minute wheel or cannon
pinion and carries the hour hand.
Howard, Edward—Born at Hingham, Mass., October 6, 1813. Having
served a regular apprenticeship in clockmaking he entered into partnership
with D. P. Davis, at the age of 29, to make clocks. He was a clever
mechanic and invented many pieces of mechanism, among them the swing
rest. In 1849 he and Davis with A. L. Dennison and others organized the
American Horologe Company for the manufacture of watches by
machinery, and with the parts interchangeable—the American principle of
today. Though they were not financially successful the American watch
industry owes its present day success largely to this beginning by Edward
Howard and Aaron L. Dennison. The first company developed into the
present Waltham Company, and later Mr. Howard established the E.
Howard Co., at Roxbury, but severed his connection with them in 1882 and
retired from business. He died March 5, 1904.
Huggeford, Ignatius—An English watchmaker, one of whose watches was
used to defraud Facio of his patent on the use of jewels in watches. See
Facio, Nicolas.
Hunter, or Hunting-Case—A watch case which has a solid metal cover
over the dial.
Hunter, George—Identified with watchmaking in America since about
1860—in the Waltham and Elgin Companies. He was general
superintendent of the latter from 1872 to 1903, after which he was made
consulting superintendent.
Huyghens, Christian—A celebrated Dutch astronomer and mathematician
born at The Hague, April 14, 1629. Although the honor is claimed for
Richard Harris in 1641 and for Vincent Galileo in 1649 it seems historically
established that Huyghens in 1657 was the first to apply to clocks the theory
of the isochronism of the pendulum which the great Galileo had discovered.
In 1669 he published his important work, "Horologium Oscillatorium." In

1673 he made the first clock with concentric hour and minute hands. He
died in 1695.
Huyghens' Checks—The arc of a swinging pendulum is a segment of a
circle. For perfect isochronism it should be a cycloidal segment. To
accomplish this Huyghens fixed curved brass pieces called checks for the
cord to strike against but he caused thereby a greater error than he
remedied. This end was later accomplished by suspending the pendulum by
means of a flat steel strip instead of a cord; a device credited to Robert
Hooke.
Hypocycloid—A curve generated by any point
in the circumference of a circle which is rolled
on the inner side of the circumference of a larger
fixed circle.

dler, Idle
I Wheel, or
Intermediate
Wheel—A
toothed wheel
used to connect driver and follower wheels
so that both shall rotate in the same direction.
Impulse—The push transmitted to the pallet by the escape wheel.
Impulse Pin—The jewel pin—usually a ruby—on the table roller of the
lever escapement, which playing into the fork of the lever transmits the
impulse to the balance.
Independent Center-Seconds—A watch peculiarly adapted to the use of the
medical profession. It carries on a separate train a long seconds hand in
addition to the hands of the ordinary watch which can be stopped without
stopping the watch.
Independent Seconds—A watch whose seconds hand is driven by a separate
train.
Ingersoll, Charles Henry—Secretary, Treasurer and General Manager of
Robt. H. Ingersoll & Brothers., watch manufacturers, of New York City.

Born at Delta, Eaton County, Michigan, October 29, 1865, a son of Orville
Boudinot and Mary Elizabeth (Beers) Ingersoll. At the early age of fifteen
years he left home and went to New York City, where he entered the
employ of his brother, Robert H., who was then engaged in the business of
manufacturing rubber stamps. Since 1880 he has been continuously
associated with his brother in various business enterprises and in the
direction and management of the Ingersoll organization. Married Eleanor
Ramsey Bond of Brooklyn, New York, July 5, 1898. Residence, South
Orange, New Jersey.
Ingersoll, Robert Hawley—Founder and President of Robt. H. Ingersoll &
Brothers., watch manufacturers, of New York City. Born December 26,
1859, of Orville Boudinot and Mary Elizabeth (Beers) Ingersoll, at Delta,
Eaton County, Michigan, he received his early education in the public
schools of his native town. In 1879, at the age of nineteen years, he came to
New York City, and in the following year engaged in the business of
manufacturing rubber stamps; later, he established a mail order business,
selling various "dollar" specialties and novelties. While engaged in this
business he conceived the idea and in 1892 commenced the manufacture of
the "dollar watch," since which time over 50,000,000 watches have been
produced and sold by the Ingersoll organization. Married June 20, 1904, to
Roberta Marie Bannister of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Residence, Oyster Bay,
Long Island.
Ingersoll, William Harrison—Marketing Manager of Robert H. Ingersoll
& Brothers., watch manufacturers, New York City. Born March 22, 1879,
near Lansing, Michigan. He received a grammar and high school education
and three years' technical training for electrical engineer. In 1901 he entered
business in the retail sporting goods store of Robt. H. Ingersoll & Brothers.
in New York City and was soon placed in charge of the Ingersoll watch
advertising, over which he exercised close supervision ever since, except
for two periods prior to 1908, when he sought and gained valuable outside
experience in other capacities, such as salesman and as manager of the
Ingersoll watch business in Canada; he then became advertising manager,
later sales and advertising manager and then general marketing manager for
developing all markets of all countries of the world for the Ingersoll
products. Active in the promotion of advertising research, Mr. Ingersoll was
one of the founders of Truth in Advertising work, assisted in establishing a

Fellowship in Advertising Research at Columbia University, New York
City, and has written and lectured extensively on salesmanship, advertising,
marketing and related subjects. His residence is at Maplewood, New Jersey.
Ingold, Franz—A Swiss watchmaker who had the idea of making watch
parts on the interchangeable plan long before it was put into practice
anywhere. He was ill-received by labor and capital alike when he presented
his plans in France, England, and America. In England he was nearly
mobbed. In 1842-43 he obtained patents on some machinery in this line, but
the machines were clumsy and for the most part impracticable. There has
been a tendency to credit Ingold as the source of Dennison's ideas on this
subject, though Dennison says he never heard of Ingold until after he had
started manufacturing.
Intercalary—Introduced or added arbitrarily to a calendar; for example,
the 29th day of February is an intercalary day.
Interchangeability—America's greatest contribution to watchmaking has
been the standardizing of parts and the manufacturing of each of them,
exactly alike, in great quantities. So that repairing an American watch is
largely a matter of obtaining a new part similar to the damaged one, and
simply putting it in place.
Invar—An alloy of nickel and steel claimed to be non-magnetizable. Used
for certain parts of watches at the time when non-magnetizable watches
were desirable. Invar is practically non-expansible when the nickel in it is
about 37%.
Isochronism—That property of a pendulum or balance spring by virtue of
which its vibrations, of whatever length, are all made in exactly equal
periods of time.

acks; or Jack o' the Clock—Figures on the old turret clocks which
J automatically struck the hours. They preceded dials tho were usually left
when the dials were added. There are Jacks on the clock at St. Mary
Steps, Exeter; Norwich Cathedral, South Aisle; and St. Dunstan's in Fleet
St., among others.
Jacquemarts—Figures of man and woman which struck the hours on the
clock set up by Philip of Burgundy at Dijon, prior to 1370. G. Peignot says

they are so named from Jacquemart, a clock maker
of Lille, employed by the Duke of Burgundy in
1442. The lack of co-ordination in the dates tends to
controvert the claim.
Jerome, Chauncey—Originator of the one-day brass
clock movement which enormously increased the
American clock business and opened a market for
American clocks in Europe. Born in Canaan,
Connecticut, in 1793. Established the Jerome Clock
Company at New Haven, Connecticut. This was the
predecessor of The New Haven Clock Company.
Jewelled—Fitted with precious stones to diminish
wear as distinguished from precious stones for
ornament. In the best watches ruby and sapphire are
used. In lower grade watches quartz, amethyst and garnet.
Jewels—Used in watches as bushings at the ends of pivots and in other
places which sustain much wear. They:

1. Provide smooth bearings for the pivots.

2. Obviate corrosion.

3. Reduce the wear from abrasion.
Sapphire is the best of the jewels in use and ruby second. Chrysolite is also
used and garnet, tho the latter is too brittle for most service. This use of
jewels was invented by Nicolas Facio—a Swiss watchmaker about 1705.
Julian Period—A period of 7980 years obtained by multiplying 28, 19 and
15—the numbers representing the cycles of the sun and moon, and the
Roman Indiction. It will end 3267 A. D., until which time there cannot be
two years having the same numbers for three cycles.
Jura Mountains—A watchmaking center in Switzerland. The industry grew
rapidly following the success of Daniel Jean Richard in 1679. This section
is the center of the system of watch-manufacturing most nearly like the
American system. See Geneva.

Jurgensen, Jules—One of the most famous watchmakers of the 19th
century; a son of Urban Jurgensen, born in 1808. He studied physics,
mechanics and astronomy in Paris and London and finally settled in Locle,
Switzerland, specializing in pocket chronometers, which have become
famous as the Jurgensen watches. He died in 1877; and was succeeded by
his son, Jules F. U. Jurgensen.
Jurgensen, Urban—A Danish mathematician and watchmaker born in
1776. He practiced his trade for a time in Switzerland, worked in Paris
under Breguet and Berthoud, and then in London, before returning to
Copenhagen to enter into partnership with his father, the court watchmaker.
He was made superintendent of all the chronometers of the Danish navy
and received several decorations. He died in 1830.

ew Observatory—The central meteorological observatory of the United

K Kingdom. Established at Richmond in 1842 and afterward transferred
to the Royal Society. Since 1900 it has been a department of the
National Laboratory. Important to the watch business because of the famous
Kew tests of timekeepers and awards for accuracy of performance.
Keyless Watches—Watches winding without a key. Such watches were
made as early as 1686 but did not come into general use until 1843, when
Adrien Phillipe (Geneva) introduced the "shifting clutch" type, and when
the "rocking bar" mechanism was introduced in 1855. These are the types in
use today. Self-winding watches have been made from time to time.
Napoleon is said to have had one which wound automatically from the
motion of being carried. The abandonment of the key nullified the
usefulness of the fusee, although some keyless fusee movements were
attempted.
Knuckles—The rounded parts of a watchcase that form the hinges or joints.
Usually two on the cover.

a Chaux de Fonds—A watchmaking center in Switzerland which, in
L 1840, with a population of 9678, had 3109 watchmakers. At present it is
the leading exporter of gold watches in Switzerland. In this section the
system of manufacturing is much like the American system.

Laminated—Made up of tin sheets of beaten, rolled or pressed metal. In the
compensation balance—the sheets are of brass and steel, or brass and
aluminum.
Lancaster, Pa.—A town where there have been watch factories for
upwards of fifty years.
Lange, Adolph—An eminent Dresden watchmaker born there in 1815,
famous for his astronomical clocks, chronometers, and fine watches. Under
the direction and with the assistance of his government he established the
extensive watchmaking industry of Glashutte. He died in 1875.
Lantern Pinion—A pinion consisting of two circular metal end plates
usually of brass joined by short steel wires which act as cogs in a gear.
Latitude—1. In astronomy, the angular elevation of a heavenly body above
the ecliptic. 2. In geography a distance measured in degrees, minutes and
seconds north or south from the equator. 3. In dial work, the elevation of the
pole of the heavens; the angle at which the plane of the horizon is cut by the
earth's axis.
Lead—The continuous action of a wheel tooth which impels the leaf of a
pinion or the pallet of a balance.
Leap-Year—See Calendar, Gregorian.
Leaves—The name applied to the teeth of a pinion wheel.
Lepaute, J. A.—1709-1789. A French clockmaker famous for his turret
clocks; the inventor of the pin-wheel escapement and an authoritative writer
on horological subjects. He wrote "Traité d'Horlogerie" which was
afterward revised and added to by Lalaude.
Lepire, Jean Antoine—Born 1720. Died 1814. A celebrated watchmaker of
Paris in the 18th century. About 1770 he introduced bars to take the place of
a top plate, omitted the fusee, used a cylinder escapement and supported his
mainspring barrel arbor at one end only. He attempted to establish a watch
factory for Voltaire at Ferney but with no success. He is sometimes credited
with making the first thin watch.
Le Roy, Julien—1686-1759. A French scientist and watchmaker. He
invented the horizontal movement for turret clocks, a form of repeating
mechanism. He constructed the first compensation balance.

Le Roy, Pierre—1717-1785. Son of Julien Le Roy. Esteemed the greatest
of all French horologists. He invented a form of duplex escapement and an
escapement which formed the basis for the present chronometer
escapement.
Lever—That part of a lever escapement to which are attached the pallet
arms, and which thus transmits motion from the escape wheel to the
balance.
Lift, or Lifting Arc—That portion of the oscillation of a balance during
which it received its impulse. The remainder of the turn is called the
supplementary arc.
Lightfoot, Peter—A Glastonbury monk, maker of the Glastonbury and
Wimburne clocks, 1335.
Lips—In a cylinder escapement, the rounded edges of the cylinder through
which the escape wheel gives impulse to the balance.
Locking—1. The stopping of the escape wheel of a watch or clock. 2. The
portion of the pallet on which the teeth of the escape wheel drop. 3. The
depth to which the escape tooth laps upon the pallet at the moment it leaves
the impulse face.
Logan, John—Born in Lowell, Mass., 1844. Invented a new method of
tempering springs and made superior main and balance springs. He was
connected for several years with the Waltham Watch Company, during
which time he invented many labor-saving machines. Died 1893.
Longitude—The circular distance east or west subtending the angle which
two meridional planes make at the axis of the earth, one of them being a
standard reference meridian.
Longines—A watch factory at St. Imier in the Jura Mountains, near La
Chaux de Fonds, established in 1874. Here all parts are made under one
roof and the work is done by machinery.
Lower Plate—The plate in a watch nearest the dial. Also called the "dial
plate." It carries the lower pivots of the movement.
Luitprand—A monk of Chartres who revived the art of glass-blowing at the
end of the 8th century. To him is sometimes ascribed the invention of the
sand-glass.

Luminous Dial—A watch dial whose hands and figures are so treated as to
be visible in the dark. Formerly accomplished by a phosphorescent paint
which required frequent exposure to sunlight to be effective and retained its
luminosity only an hour or two. Now effected by means of a compound
absolutely independent of the sunlight and of a lasting glow. See Radiolite.
Lunette—The usual form of rounded watch
crystal.
Mainspring—The long steel ribbon used for
driving a clock or watch. The spring is coiled into a circular metal box
called the barrel and the outer end of the spring is fastened to the barrel; the
inner end to the arbor of the great wheel. First applied, replacing weights,
by Peter Henlein of Nuremberg, about 1500.

aintaining Power—The device for driving the train while a watch or
M clock is being wound.
Marsh, E. A.—An important figure in watch manufacturing in America for
a number of years. Born at Sunderland, Conn., in 1837, in 1863 he entered
the employ of the Waltham Watch Company and rose to the position of
General Superintendent. In 1908 he retired from active service but retains
his connection with the company as consulting superintendent. Besides his
practical services to the watchmaking industry Mr. Marsh wrote "The
Evolution of Automat Machinery," in 1896.
Massey, Edward—An English watchmaker of the early nineteenth century.
He invented the "crank roller" escapement, a kind of keyless winding for
watches, and many other watch parts.
Mean Solar Day—The average length of all the solar days in a year. This
period is divided into 24 parts, or hours.
Mean Time—Clocks, watches, etc., are made to measure equal units of time
instead of the apparent time indicated by the sun. Mean time and true solar
time agree only four times in a year. See Equation of Time.
Mercer's Balance-A balance of the ordinary kind fitted with an auxiliary—
a laminated arm of brass and steel fixed at one end to the central bar of the