Chapter 13

CLOCKS ON LAND AND CLOCKS AT SEA

Christmas came and went, January passed, and February was well on its way, and still Christopher did not tire of coming into the city with his father each morning and spending the day at the store. He had found many little ways in which he could be useful and as a result he now had something to do to keep him from becoming bored and discontented. He could, for example, help deliver the sorted mail to the different departments and do various minor errands for McPhearson, toward whom he had come to entertain a genuine affection.

In the meantime he had been every week to see the oculist and each time had been commended for his patience and urged to be resigned to idleness a little longer.

"You'll gain in the end if you hold off until the year is out," said the doctor. "Remember, you have in all probability a long stretch of years ahead of you to the very last moment of which you will need your eyes. Therefore you cannot afford to injure them thus early in the game, for if you do you will never be able to beg, borrow, or steal another pair. What do a few short months amount to when weighed against a lifetime?"

It was a telling argument and immediately the lad sensed the worth of it.

"I figure you're right, Doctor Corbin," responded he bravely. "I'll peg away at being lazy for another spell. But don't keep me loafing any longer than you have to, will you? You see, just lately I have begun to be anxious to get back to my books. There are lots of things I want to hunt up and learn."

"Blessings brighten as they vanish, eh?" smiled the physician. "Well, it is something to have that impulse. Hold on to it; and when at last you have your books don't forget how fortunate you are to have them."

"I sha'n't--believe me!"

Accordingly Christopher gathered together his courage and as he himself expressed it _bucked up_ to endure a prolonged period of inactivity. "I shall depend on you to cheer me up, Mr. McPhearson," announced he after recounting to the sympathetic Scotchman the doctor's decision. "If it weren't for you, I don't know what I'd do."

"Pooh! Nonsense! Non--_sense_! You'd find ways enough to amuse yourself without the help of an old fossil like me, I guess," blustered the clockmaker. Nevertheless it was plain to be seen the words pleased him, for he was a kind man who enjoyed doing a service for another. Moreover, Christopher had worn a path to his lonely heart and his boyish gladness transformed each day into a novelty to be anticipated.

Once when Mr. Burton had remained in the city to attend a dinner at the Lotus Club, McPhearson had persuaded his employer to allow the boy to go home with him and remain until the function was over. Ah, what an evening the two cronies had together that night! The Scotchman grilled chops in his tiny kitchenette and baked macaroni too; and made ambrosial hot chocolate. Then there were hot rolls, fancy cakes, and ice cream that appeared as it by magic from goodness only knew where. And afterward, when the little flat had been tidied up (a task in which Christopher shared), McPhearson got out his flute and such wonderful old Scotch airs as he played! "Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie Doon," "Annie Laurie," "Mary of Argyle," "The Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee"--he knew them all and scores of others.

There was a fire in the microscopic fireplace, there was a box of candy, and there was plenty of fun and good talk. Later they had gone to see the big Metropolitan Life Insurance clock and watch its shooting red and white lights. Seldom had Christopher passed so happy an evening or one that flew by so quickly.

When Mr. Burton came with the taxi to take him home it was almost unbelievable it could really be eleven o'clock.

"I hope my son hasn't tired you all out, McPhearson," said the head of the firm. "It was very kind of you to bother with him."

"It was kind of you to let him come."

That was all the old man vouchsafed. He wasn't one given to talking much about the things he cherished deeply. But more than once after the boy had gone he recalled the picture the lad had made sitting there in the firelight; remembered the brightness of his smile and the gayety of his laughter. Even a flute could not furnish music as light-hearted. It was long since anything so joyous had echoed through the dim, dingy rooms. He wished he could fool himself into believing he was as young as he felt that night.

"Perhaps," observed he the next day, when Christopher referred to the evening, "your father will let you come again sometime. He may have another dinner or a meeting of some sort that will keep him in town."

"I wish he would," exclaimed Christopher heartily.

They were sitting together at the repairing bench, the clockmaker busy with an old chronometer.

"That's a new variety of puzzle, isn't it?" commented the boy, motioning toward it.

"Oh, I tinker a chronometer once in a while," McPhearson answered. "I don't get them often, though."

"What on earth are they for?"

"You don't know?" The Scotchman raised his brows with surprise.

"Not really. I associate them vaguely with the sea and ships."

"So far, so good," granted the elder man.

"But the trouble is that's as far as I can go," Christopher said.

"Bless me!" ejaculated McPhearson.

"I meant once to find out all about chronometers; but before I got started something interrupted me and I forgot it. I wasn't much interested in them anyhow, I'm afraid."

"And now you'd like a few points, eh?"

"Yes. I know I shall get a great deal better idea of them if you tell me," was the reply.

"If you weren't an American and I a Scotchman, I should say you were an Irishman," laughed his companion.

"Why?" demanded Christopher innocently.

"Because you sound as if you had kissed the Blarney Stone. Well, if you wish to learn about chronometers you have chosen a somewhat difficult subject. It leads pretty far, you see. However, I will do my best to give you at least a few facts about them. In the first place the earth actually revolves on its axis in twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes, and four seconds. We commonly divide our day, however, into twenty-four hours and let it go at that. But astronomers reckon more accurately. They call our day the solar day and instead of having a clock with twelve figures on it as we do, they use one with twenty-four."

Christopher glanced up with a smile.

"Why be so fussy about things like minutes and seconds?"

"Because sometimes such things as minutes and seconds make a great deal of difference. You may remember that when we were talking of sundials I told you they were not exact timekeepers."

"I do remember."

"You see, we reckon our day by two counts: one of them begins at noon and goes on--one, two, three, four o'clock, etc.--up to midnight; the other begins at midnight and ends at noon."

"That's simple enough. I get that all right."

"Now people didn't always do that. There were other countries that planned their day differently. The ancient Babylonians, for instance, began their day at sunrise; the Athenians and Jews at sunset; and the Egyptians and Romans at midnight."

"How funny! I thought that of course it had always been done as we do it," confessed Christopher, with frank astonishment.

"Not at all. Our present system of time-keeping has been evolved out of the past and, like many other such heirlooms, is the result of a vast amount of study. Centuries ago nobody knew how to reckon time or what to reckon it by. Some computed it by the sun and had what is known as the solar day--a span of twenty-four hours; others figured it by the moon and got a lunar day of twenty-four hours and fifty minutes; while still others resorted to the stars or constellations and reached a result known as sidereal time, a day of twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes. Now you see there is quite a bit of difference in these various reckonings. The difference might not matter so much on land, but when one is at sea and has to compute latitude and longitude, it matters a vast deal."

"Oh!" A light of understanding was slowly dawning on the boy.

"Now," went on McPhearson, "apparent solar time is dependent on the motion of the sun and is shown by the sundial; mean solar time, on the other hand, is shown by a correct clock; and the difference between the two--or the difference between apparent time and mean time is technically known as the equation of time, and is set forth in a nautical almanac published by the government."

McPhearson waited a moment.

"And that's what mariners use?"

"Yes."

"Then," hazarded Christopher after a moment's thought, "there really is exact time and common time."

"Broadly speaking, yes," acquiesced McPhearson. "Or in other words there is time scientifically measured and time that is measured by man-made laws. The difference, as I told you, is of more importance to astronomers and mariners than to anybody else; and yet the puzzle for many centuries balked those who sought to establish a perfect system of time-keeping. As better ships were built and adventurous persons began to sail the ocean both for trade and conquest, captains soon discovered the stars and the compass could not be relied upon to furnish them the reliable information they needed in locating their position. Therefore, about 1713 England offered a prize of L20,000 to any one who should invent a timekeeper sufficiently accurate to enable navigators to ascertain from it longitude at sea."

The Scotchman paused to take from his table a box of tiny brass screws from which he selected one that was to his liking.

"Now there was living at this period John Harrison, a Yorkshire clockmaker, who although quite a young man had made a clock with wooden works into which he had put a gridiron pendulum--a device he had thought out to overcome the difficulties resulting from atmospheric conditions. This clock was so skillfully adjusted that it did not vary a second a month. So you can see that despite the fact Harrison was not a member of the Clockmakers' Company he was certainly qualified to be."

"And did he go after the prize money?"

"Apparently the offer tempted him. Perhaps he not only desired to win the fortune offered but also wished the fun of solving the riddle the government propounded. At any rate, in 1728 he came to London prepared to present drawings of an instrument he felt certain would turn the trick and had not his friends deterred him he would have placed these sketches before the commission. Fortunately, however, he had excellent advisers (among whom was honest John Graham) and they assured him he would stand a far better chance of securing a favorable hearing should he first construct the instrument of which he at present had nothing but pictures. Now such counsel as this was pretty disheartening to a young man who, fired with hope and ambition, had come all the way to London confidently expecting to have his plan hailed with joy when he arrived. Nevertheless Harrison was open-minded enough to accept his friends' guidance and acting upon it he went home again and worked for seven years on the instrument he had drawn out on paper."

"And then did he bring it to London?" was Christopher's breathless demand.

"Yes," affirmed McPhearson. "The contrivance, however, was by no means perfect. Still it showed sufficient promise to interest the commissioners and lead them to give Harrison permission to go to Lisbon on one of the king's ships; that he might correct his reckonings by taking practical observations at sea. Moreover they also paid him L5,000 of the prize money to encourage him. This financial spur, together with the faith it represented, stimulated the patient instrument-maker to fashion a second timekeeper on which he spent four years of hard work. But even this one, although better than the first, failed to meet the demands, and he tried again, taking ten years to perfect a third. This was smaller and as it seemed to foreshadow good results he was awarded the gold medal annually presented by the Royal Society for the most useful nautical discovery thus far made. Yet notwithstanding this triumph the article he had produced did not suit him. Experience had, in the meantime, taught him a great deal, and after more corrections and improvements he came again before the committee and asked that the device he now had might be given practical trial."

Christopher hitched his stool a little nearer.

"Now governments, like elephants and mastodons, move slowly, and by the time the coveted permission was granted poor Harrison was well-nigh seventy years old and instead of setting out on an ocean voyage for Jamaica he was forced to surrender his place to his son, William, whom he had trained up as one of his apprentices."

"Poor old duffer! I'll bet he was disappointed," came sympathetically from Christopher. "Think of his having to stay at home and miss the fun of seeing how his invention was working!"

"It was pretty tough," agreed McPhearson. "William, in the meantime, sailed out of Portsmouth harbor and after eighteen days of voyaging the vessel, supposed by ordinary calculation to be 13 deg. 50' west of that port, was by Harrison's watch 15 deg. 19', whereupon the captain of the ship immediately cried that it was worthless. If William had not been a chip of the old block and had inherited some of his father's courage, wisdom, and persistence, he would have lost his nerve at this crisis and allowed himself to come home beaten. But evidently he believed in the venture he had in hand. Perhaps, too, the thought of how disappointed his poor old dad would be were he to return spurred him to hold on with bulldog tenacity. So instead of being cowed by this apparent failure he insisted that if Madeira were correctly charted on the captain's map, it would be sighted the next day. So convincing was his prediction that the reluctant officer at length consented to continue on his course, and sure enough the following morning there loomed Madeira just as William had prophesied! Having won out on this forecast, William kept on predicting just where the other islands would be and behold, one after another they came into sight!"

"Hurray!" cried Christopher.

"Well, after a trip of sixty-one days the _Deptford_ reached Port Royal, and the chronometer (for that is what this new sort of watch really was) proved to be only about nine seconds slow. Then followed the voyage home. William Harrison had been gone five months in all--five months which to his poor, anxious old father must have seemed five years in length. During that entire time the chronometer had varied only one minute and five seconds."

"Pooh! That wasn't anything to get hot over," exploded Christopher.

"And yet a variation as great as that represented an error of eighteen miles--a big enough distance to admit of a ship being run on no end of rocks and shoals."

"I didn't realize it amounted to so many miles," was the sober reply.

"Probably the error even in miles did not shock people of that time as much as it would us, for they were accustomed to inaccuracies. Moreover such a record was worlds better than anything previously known. Yet notwithstanding this fact, the commissioners haggled over awarding the prize money and after advancing another L5,000 insisted that William make a second trip."

"Shucks!"

McPhearson paid no heed to the interruption.

"This time," continued he, "the undaunted young clockmaker embarked on an English man-of-war, the _Tartar_, and sailed for the Barbados, the chronometer gaining only forty-three seconds; and then back he came on the _New Elizabeth_, making the round trip of one hundred fifty-six days with only a total gain of fifty-four seconds in his father's instrument."

"Bravo! And so old Harrison at last got his money," asserted Christopher with a satisfied sigh.

"Not yet. You move too fast, sonny. Governments do not bestow fortunes at your pace. Not they! This time the commissioners paid over a third L5,000, joining with it the demand that the elder Harrison explain to a company of experts exactly how his invention worked. In our day a man would have protected himself with a patent before he surrendered the requested information but the universe of the eighteenth century was less sophisticated. Patiently Harrison told his inquisitors everything they wanted to know and in 1765 they declared themselves satisfied with the instrument in every detail."

"Well, I should think it was high time!" scoffed the boy.

The Scotchman smiled at his indignation.

"Oh, don't imagine yourself through with the story yet," said he, "for even now more conditions were enjoined. Before the balance of the prize money was paid, one of the experts was appointed to construct a chronometer like Harrison's for the purpose not only of finding out whether every claim he made for it was true, but also to assure the board that other persons beside this one old man could make such an instrument. The fulfillment of this final condition consumed three years."

"Oh, rats! I should have told them they could keep their money--the old grannies!" jeered his listener wrathfully.

"They had to be sure, you know."

"But poor Harrison! What was he doing in the meantime?"

"Growing to be a very old man, alas!" McPhearson answered in a saddened voice. "It was not until 1773 that the last of the L20,000 for which he had so valiantly struggled was given him."

"I'm thankful he got it and hadn't died."

"He died three years later--an old man of eighty-three. Nevertheless he lived long enough to see his dream fulfilled. Sixty years of his life he had devoted to experimenting with and perfecting his chronometer. It was a great service to the world--a deed that influenced not only all subsequent clockmaking but ultimately all marine enterprises. It also, by making navigation easier, saved innumerable lives. Other scientists followed and built on his discoveries until now, thanks to them all, the sea is practically as safe and familiar a spot to dwell upon as is the land. No longer are vessels at a loss to know where they are. With the finely adjusted nautical instruments at their command, scientific books, wireless communication, and the correct time sent out each day by radio they have no excuse for failing to make and maintain accurate observations."

"But poor old Harrison--I cannot help regretting he had to wait so long for his prize money," bewailed Christopher.

"I rather think, laddie, had you asked the inventor of the chronometer which gave him the greater satisfaction--the award the English Government paid him or the joy derived from successfully working out the puzzle it propounded--he would have told you that in his estimation, when weighed the one against the other, the money counted for nothing--nothing!"