Part 4

We now come to the time when the use of jewels was first invented and applied; and as these, by being so hard and uninfluenced by friction as to allow the pivots to play without wearing away,--as metal would do by constant action,--afterwards gained for the English peculiar fame as manufacturers of watches, we shall be excused for enlarging upon this point. About the year 1700 Nicolas Facio, a native of Geneva, having invented the use of jewels in watches, and failed in his attempt to persuade the Parisian watch-makers into the adoption of his notions, came to London. In May, 1705, he and two other watch-makers, Peter Debaufree and Jacob Debaufree, obtained a patent for his invention to extend over fourteen years. In December, 1705, he petitioned, as we shall presently see, to be granted a more extended term, and then the Clockmakers' Company opposed the application upon the ground of the invention not being a novel one, and in proof of their statement produced the watch, of which we give an illustration, as made by Ignatius Huggeford, a member of their own Company, some time before the application of the pendulum-spring. As this watch had a large amethyst mounted upon the cock or pivot of the balance-wheel, the Committee of the House of Commons were induced to decide against Facio's petition and to throw out his Bill.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: Ignatius Huggeford's Original Jewelled Watch.] | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+

This watch has since then obtained an extensive historical reputation, and it is preserved in the archives of the Clockmakers' Company as one of their most valuable treasures, for it is the earliest known English jewelled watch, and is the identical instrument produced before the House of Commons Committee, as evidence to upset, and which did upset, poor Facio's claim for an extension of patent. Alas, for ancient reputations, it has been but recently discovered that Huggeford's watch was but a fraud, and that the jewel on the cock which deceived the Parliamentary Committee into supposing that Ignatius Huggeford, an Englishman, had applied jewels to watches long before Facio had been heard of, _has nothing to do with the working_ of the watch. The jewel has been merely stuck on, just in the place where a jewel should be; but as it is only fixed to the surface of the brass and no pivot plays in the jewel, it may be averred that the amethyst has no more to do with the movement of the watch than the silver ornaments on the watch-case. It is clear by the words in Facio's petition that his application of jewelling to watches was not merely done with the idea of ornamenting them,--in that there would have been no novelty,--and it seems probable that the amethyst would have been placed upon the face of the watch if the object of inserting it anywhere had simply been ornamentation; to speak plainly, none other than a fraudulent purpose could be served by its being placed where it is. It is, we fear, not impossible that the jewel was placed there at the insistence of some of the members of the Clockmakers' Company, who, being perhaps jealous of the foreign invention, and fearful of its effects upon their own private trade, were still unable to prevent the grant of a patent, in May, 1703, for fourteen years to the inventor. But by December of that year, when application was made for the extension of the patent, they had had time to consider affairs and to prepare their opposition. We may believe this watch to have been Ignatius Huggeford's, and to have been all that it was sworn to be by the members of that Company, but, when we remark that neither is any mention whatever made by them, nor, as far as it appears, any question asked of them before the Parliamentary Committee as to the jewel being upon the cock during the whole of the time of its being in their possession, we cannot but arrive at the conclusion that the jewel was placed upon Huggeford's old watch--the date of which could be shown--at the order of some of the members of the Clockmakers' Company with the purpose of defeating the patent, and that the Committee of the House of Commons were not as careful as they ought to have been in inspecting the jewel, for if they had, they must have seen the want of connexion between the amethyst and the pivot, which, it was pretended, was working in it. The probability is that at this time our English watch-makers scarcely knew how to apply a jewel, or otherwise they would have inserted the pivot in a proper manner. The story is anyhow a very extraordinary one, for, supposing the Clockmakers' Company to be innocent of conspiracy on the subject, it must have been a miraculously curious whim which possessed old Huggeford to insert a jewel as an ornament in a place where it would not be seen, and still more wonderful that it should, sham as it was, be placed exactly where it should suit the purpose of after-litigation. Of course there can be no imputation arising out of this incident to affect the members of the Clockmakers' Company of the present time, for they are no more answerable for what was done above a century and a half ago than the Parliament of to-day is to be blamed for allowing the execution of Charles I., or for enacting the laws which led to the loss of our American colonies.

After the invention of jewels for watches came a still more important discovery.

Since 1530, when Gemma Frisius first proposed to ascertain the relative longitude of any place or ship at sea, by means of an horological machine for indicating the time of the first meridian, the subject had excited the attention of most of our philosophers, but unavailingly, as there was then no chronometrical instrument, upon which reliance might safely be placed. Huygens, in 1664, had contrived a time-piece actuated by a spring and regulated by a pendulum, but the pendulum was affected by the tossing of the ship, and by a change of temperature, as well as being subject, as was afterwards discovered, to a variation in weight depending on the parallel of latitude. The Academy of Sciences at Paris proposed, in 1720, a reward for the best paper in reply to the question:--'What is the most perfect method of preserving on the sea the equable motion of a pendulum?' The reward was given to a Dutchman named Massy, but his plan was not carried out. An English watch-maker named Henry Sully happened to be about this time in Paris directing a large manufactory of chronometers, and he presented the French Academy with a marine time-keeper of superior construction to the time-pieces of that period, and accompanied his gift by a memoir describing it. Whilst still engaged in the study of his art, Sully, who was a clever man, unfortunately died, and the opportunity of advance seemed to have passed away.

About this time Graham invented the Mercurial Compensation pendulum, which consisted of a glass or iron jar filled with quicksilver and fixed to the end of the pendulum rod, which, when heat lengthened the rod, expanded simultaneously the quicksilver, and made the centre of oscillation to continue at the same distance from the point of suspension. He afterwards conceived a notion, which John Harrison subsequently worked out, of making a compensation pendulum (or a pendulum that should in itself contain the power of equalizing its own action, whatever the change of temperature), forming it of various metals. In 1726 Harrison invented what is called the gridiron pendulum, composed of nine rods, five of steel and four of brass, which are so arranged that those which expand most are counteracted upon by those of less expansion. These two compensation pendulums, the gridiron and mercurial, are still in use, and with slight improvements are found to keep to time very accurately.

The period had now arrived for the making of marine time-keepers sufficiently accurate for nautical use, and styled chronometers because they are most accurate time-measurers. Their value to navigators, and the immense impetus which would by such instruments be given to the science of navigation, had long been foreseen, but there were many great difficulties in the way of obtaining a perfect chronometer. The sailor, before the invention of this instrument, could ascertain the latitude of his ship at sea, by observation of the fixed stars. Supposing these stars to have first appeared to him in the zenith, and at his next observation to be one, two, or three degrees south of the zenith, he would know that he had sailed just so many degrees north of the place in which he first observed them. It was not, however, so easy for him to compute longitudes, because the diurnal revolution of the earth causes each meridian to pass successively under the same stars. It was necessary to have an accurate time-keeper, and to set it carefully to the solar time of some port in the kingdom, whose longitude was well known. The time-piece might then be carried out in a vessel sailing abroad, and the computations made by means of it would prove most wonderfully exact and important. By simply observing the moment at which the sun reached his meridian, when of course it would be 12 o'clock at noon, solar time, and then noting the difference between the solar time thus ascertained and the time of the chronometer, the mariner would be able by calculating 15 degrees to one hour of time, or 15 geographical miles to one minute, to make out his longitude. For example, if the time-piece had been set to time at the meridian of Greenwich observatory, and if it be one o'clock by the time-piece when it is mid-day, or meridian by the sun, then the place in which the longitude is taken must be in long. 15 degrees east of the meridian of Greenwich, and if it be eleven o'clock by the chronometer when the sun attains his meridian, then the place must be in long. 15 degrees west of the meridian of Greenwich. It is not indispensably necessary, that every chronometer used for maritime purposes should keep time exactly with that of the Greenwich observatory, or of any other instrument of known excellence, provided always that its _rate_ as seamen call it, or the daily loss or gain of the chronometer, is well ascertained, and so may be computed in the calculations to be made. The indispensable requisite of a chronometer, however, is that the daily loss or gain shall not vary materially from itself at different periods, or under the changes of temperature of different climates, and these qualities being found in an instrument of any shape or make, constitute a marine chronometer.

It will be generally obvious of what immense and universal importance it was for men who 'go down to the sea in ships and do their business on the great waters' to be provided with a chronometer, and so be enabled to calculate with a great degree of nicety,--almost as a traveller by land learns his distances by milestones and finger-posts,--the precise position on the wide ocean of the vessel they are engaged in navigating. So impressed was the British Parliament with the value of such an invention, that as early as 1714, in the reign of Queen Anne, a reward of £10,000 was offered, for any method for determining the longitude within the accuracy of one degree; of £15,000 within the limit of 40 geographical miles; and of £20,000 within the limit of 30 geographical miles, or half a degree, provided such method should extend 80 miles from the coast. In 1736 John Harrison invented the first chronometer, for which, after having added many improvements, he received the gold medal of the Royal Society in 1749. He still continued to persevere in improvements in his instrument, and at last applied to be allowed to test its powers in such a voyage as might permit of proof of its value. After some time his application was granted, and his son, William Harrison, embarked at Portsmouth, Nov. 18, 1761, for Jamaica. After eighteen days sailing the vessel was computed to be 13° 50´ west of Portsmouth, when the distance calculated by the watch was 15° 19´. When the vessel arrived at Madeira, on the 9th of December, it was found that the reckoning was corrected by the time of the piece, about a degree and a half. From Madeira to Jamaica the reckoning was amended 3°; and at the several islands where the ship touched the known longitudes agreed very closely with those indicated by the chronometer. Upon having returned again to England after a very stormy voyage, the instrument underwent examination, and its entire error amounted to 1^m. 53^s. 5. Harrison, on this report being made, obtained from Parliament a reward of £5000. A second experiment was afterwards made in 1764, in March of which year Harrison left Portsmouth with his instrument on board the Tartar for Barbadoes. He had previously conveyed to the Lords of the Admiralty his statement of the rates at which his chronometer went, and the extent to which it was affected by change of temperature. On May 13th the vessel arrived at Barbadoes, and it was found that the amount of the daily deviations from mean time was only 43^s. in excess. He returned to England after an entire voyage of 156 days, and found that, allowing the gain of one second per day as stated by him in his sealed 'rate,' the whole gain was only 54^s. Harrison then was examined by a committee appointed for the purpose, and, having explained satisfactorily to them the principles of his instrument, he received another £5000. A trial was then made by another person with a chronometer made upon Harrison's plan, and this experiment also terminating favourably, the remaining parliamentary reward was paid over to Harrison, amounting in all to £20,000, a sum which was still further increased by gratuities from the Board of Longitude and the East India Company.

Harrison's improvements in time-measuring were of considerable importance, as any one may readily conceive, but he was sufficiently candid to acknowledge that the balance, balance-spring, and compensation curb, as then used, were not simultaneously affected by changes of temperature, that small pieces were more readily affected than large ones, and pieces in motion sooner than pieces at rest, whence he concluded that if the provision for heat and cold could properly be arranged in the balance itself, as in his gridiron pendulum-clocks, the time might be better kept.

Harrison's suggestion of a compensation balance in lieu of a compensating curb, incited Peter le Roy, a native of France, to the consideration of the question, and ultimately to the invention of a balance acted upon by mercury and alcohol. The compensation was effected by the balance itself, which, carrying the two thermometers, adjusted the mercury nearer or farther from the centre of the balance, according to the state of the atmosphere.

About this period there was considerable emulation exhibited, both here and on the continent, upon the subject of time-measuring. Sully had aided largely in the advancement of the art of watch-making in London and Paris. Berthoud, Julien, and Pierre le Roy made many ingenious propositions, and amongst others the invention of the detached escapement is attributed to the last-named.

In England we find the names of Arnold, Earnshaw, and Mudge associated about this date with the greatest improvements in chronometry, and as being those to whom prizes were at different times awarded by the Board of Longitude. In fact, few great inventions have since been made in the art, and our present high position as chronometer-makers is mainly due to the skill, energy, and perseverance then exhibited.

It would be superfluous to give any detailed description of the many valuable advantages derived from the science of horology, to which indeed all arts, sciences, trades, and callings are considerably indebted, and will probably be still more so in proportion to the increase of the use of steam-power and electricity. As by means of these recently-discovered powers mankind are enabled to compress into a day what would previously have required weeks and even months to accomplish, so must they regard with higher esteem, as these improvements are extended, the science by means of which they may divide and subdivide the precious minutes which are sufficient to perform so much. It will be worth while by way of illustration to point to the assistance given by horology to astronomical and nautical science. It is by means of carefully-made and exact chronometers that we calculate the distance and relations of the various heavenly bodies to ourselves and to one another. Having ascertained, by comparison, the rapidity of light and sound, and that the former travels at the rate of 192,000 miles per second, we discover that the light of the sun requires eight minutes to reach the earth, and thus compute the sun's actual distance from us. So also observing the number of seconds which elapse between the flash of lightning and the roll of thunder, or between the flash and report of a cannon, and remembering that in mild weather sound travels at the rate of 1123 feet, and in frosty weather 1080 feet in a second, we shall be able, on making allowances for the state of the atmosphere, to arrive at a tolerably correct conclusion as to distances. It is by means of a chronometer, though it be but a sand-glass, that the sailor uses his log-line at sea and finds the rate of his vessel's speed. His lead, enclosed in the log, or wood, is attached to the log-line, which has certain lengths called knots marked upon it for nautical miles, and according to the knots paid out in the half-minute of the sand-glass, so is the ship's rate of sailing, _i. e._, if ten knots are passed in half a minute the vessel's speed is at the rate of ten miles an hour.

It would be both impossible and unnecessary to describe the various experiments in which it is of great consequence to measure time into minute proportions,--the number of these increases with advancing science; it will suffice if we have made the subject sufficiently interesting to the general reader to induce him to inquire further into the details. It is only by such investigations that he will be enabled to give anything like a proper answer to the question 'What is Time?'

MODERN WATCHES:

THEIR VARIETIES AND MODES OF MANUFACTURE.

'He that would wear a watch two things must do,-- Pocket his watch and watch his pocket too.'--_Old Maxim._

The first possession of a watch by young persons of either sex is perhaps one of the most vividly retained of all their early memories. The sense of responsibility, of importance, which such a wonderful little piece of mechanism gives to them, the alacrity with which they thenceforth note the flight of time and compare the working of all other time-pieces, is remarkable. One of the first things usually done by the juvenile with his or her watch is, curiously enough, to challenge thereby the performance of the old-established time-pieces in the house,--even the infallible old Hall Clock, a very Nestor among clocks, does not escape scrutiny. Woe be to his ancient reputation if, when 'weighed by the new balances'--compensation or otherwise,--he be 'found wanting.' The yet unfledged urchin will, upon the evidence of his own newly-acquired chronometer, unhesitatingly expose and denounce the slightest delinquency of the antique time-piece, and pride and plume himself accordingly. At this time of day, when watches of a sound and durable kind may be had for a comparatively small sum, and when education commences so early, it may be supposed that youths attain earlier to years of discretion, and so rise to the dignity of watch-wearers sooner than their predecessors did. Anyhow, the value of time can scarcely be inculcated at too juvenile an age, nor can it be brought home to the mind of the pupil without providing him with the means of studying the operations of his own personal time-keeper. From the hour when such a gift comes into his possession until the latest day of his life a watch remains his indispensable mentor, and, literally, his bosom-friend. There are few, perhaps none, who can look upon the face of an old watch, their day and night companion for many years, without associating it with the bygone times when it reckoned off for them their moments of pain or anxiety, their joys and sorrows. There is perhaps scarcely any memento of a friend or relative so suggestive as that semi-living object which has been his constant friend for so long, the chief valuable of all his 'portable property.'

Our Old English popular rhymes and songs have frequently been pointed with witticisms directed at the care with which watches have been guarded, or the dexterity with which they have been filched away. Who can overlook the evergreen old dramatic joke, of which the point consisted in connecting the time-teller with the name of the ancient street-guardian; _e.g._:--

'I knocked him down, then snatched it from his fob. "Watch, watch!" cried he, when I had done the job; "My watch is gone!" said he: said I, "Just so, Stop where you are, watches were made to go."'

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: The Horizontal Watch.] | | | | [Illustration: The Skeleton Lever Watch.] | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+

Who can forget Dickens's description of the watch of the wonderful Captain Cuttle, which, if you set so far forward at night and so far backward in the morning, was asserted to be 'a watch that would do anybody credit;' or again, how can we omit mention of that earlier Dickensian figure, mentioned by Sam Weller, wearing his enormous watch with so much happy fearlessness, his seals dangling from his fob, the continual temptation and despair of eager pick-pockets, whose ineffectual efforts to abstract the watch from such a tightly-protuberant stomach, were the never ceasing delight of its jolly proprietor? Who shall narrate the characteristics of the various fashions in watches, and the trinkets that were worn along with them, the manners of the fine gentlemen who carried two at a time soon after swords were exchanged for walking-canes, and when pantaloons anticipated the easier but less graceful trowsers? Snuff-boxes, bag-wigs, pig-tails, high cravats, shoe-buckles, have all gone more or less out of fashion, but the watch is a perennial, which may indeed change its outer-casing and its decorations, like man himself, but knows no period of absolute disuse since first it started into being.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: The Full Plate Patent English Lever.] | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [Illustration: Three-Quarter Plate English Lever.] | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+