 CHAPTER 7 THE MODERN CLOCK AND ITS CREATORS We learned that toward the close of the thirteenth century, a clock was set 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 an inscription, the words of Virgil, di shiti gestitium moniti, learn justice from my advice, and the bells were gambled away by Henry VIII. In the same century, Dante, whose wonderful poem, the Comedia, parenthetically 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 oorloge. Chaucer speaks of a cock crowing as regularly as a clock in an abbey oorloge, 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 oorloge 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 armour or even mere grotesque figures, which at the right moment beat upon the bell. These figures were called jacks of the clock, or jackomarts, 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 Donde at Padua, Italy. Another was constructed in England in 1340 by Peter Lightfoot, a monk of Glastonbury, and in 1364 Henry de Vique, de Vique or de Vique of Wurttemberg, 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 laps 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 Medesian treachery. The Massacre of Saint 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 Vique'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 today have an 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 Vique'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 round 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 30 hours, involving 432,000 interruptions. De Vicks' 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 100 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. 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, tuck, the wheel moving a little way each time, and the pallets ultimately catching and holding it from going too far. The device was kept running slowly by means of a crossbar called a foliat, 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 start 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 hairspring, 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 today. It was as quaint and clumsy in 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 in watching used today 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 DeVix also struck the hour 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 years and ponderous waits of an early craftsman who wrought his work into the ages. As already stated, DeVix'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. DeVix's old clock may have been a crude machine. It certainly was a poorer timekeeper, but it was the sturdy ancestor of all those myriad tribes of clocks and watches which warn us solemnly from our towers, time to us from our mantles, 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 DeVix was retained without any improvement of importance, in all the timepieces of the next three hundred years. The foliate 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 as workmen is any modern. DeVix 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 foliate balance was at its best only when running slowly. Altogether, then, these early clocks were easily surpassed in accuracy of timekeeping by a sundial or a good clip sidra. 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 sundial. 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 Vicks' clock contained, as it were, the germ of all our clocks, and moreover the mediaeval regarded machinery with profoundest awe. It is the unknown which awakes imagination. We wonder at the cathedrals of his day. But the mediaeval 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 today. 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 patience 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 skullful jeweler could 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 DeVic 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 clockworks of this kind. The famous clock of Strasbourg Cathedral shows the extreme to which the medieval craftsmen 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 16th 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 pizza. 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. In 1581, this youth of 17 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 clocked construction, hung waiting in the air. Young Galileo took notice. The lamp swung to and fro, to and fro. Sometimes it moved, but slightly. Even 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 the 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 in equal 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 hairspring, and herein lies a remarkable fact. This epic-making discovery was after all but a rediscovery. The isochronism of the 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 Huygens, a celebrated Dutch astronomer and mathematician who discovered the rings of Saturn, and by the English inventor Dr. Robert Hook. The invention is claimed for several other men in England and abroad, at about the same time, but heartily upon sufficient authority. Around 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 mantle. Look within, if you will, and see the compact mechanism with its toothed ears, 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 Huygens hung the pendulum from a separate point, and connected it with a forked crank, a stride 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 clockwork, and the chief difference between the mechanism made by DeVic 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 deadbeat 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 embarrassing problem due to the inevitable variations in temperature. Bells 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 measure 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 first people 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 practice 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 VIII. The Watch That Was Hatched From the Nuremberg Egg In the second act of Shakespeare's play, As You Like It, when Touchstone the Fool meets Jokwus the Sage, he draws forth a sundial 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 Ahas 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 and 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 sundials. 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 DeVic and Lightfoot were not much more than a century old. In the quaint old town of Nuremberg there lived at that time one Peter Henline, 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 and 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 jerkens and pointed caps and pointed shoes. It looked like the Meistersinger and Grimm's fairy tales and pictures by Howard Pyle and Maxfield Parish, 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 Henline overcame that difficulty by using for the motive power a coiled mainspring wound up with a ratchet, just as we still do today. There is some dispute over attributing to Henline 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 Seelis in 1511, produces more ingenious inventions. A clever and comparatively young man, Peter Henline, 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. There was, however, no invention of any such thing as we mean by the term watch today, 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, Henline 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 today. 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 pens 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 Henline 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 foliate 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 main spring. Otherwise, the watch would not run at all. Such a spring exercised more pressure when it was fully wound than when it was nearly run down. And so the worst fault of the foliate was that it speeded up under increased pressure. The first improvements, and in fact the only ones for nearly 200 years, were directed toward doing away with the unequal pressure of the main spring, 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 Stack Freed. 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 caring 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. Jakob Zeck, 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 Stack Freed. Presently he hid upon the principle of the Fusee, and grew it, 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 timekeeper. Therefore it was not long before people began to want Swiss watches. These were the days when skillful Swiss craftsmen worked patiently in their little home shops, making some single watch pardon, 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. Someone 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 leased. 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 wished to go. For timekeeping the watch was still less useful than the watchmen. 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 the Sixth 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 Popper. 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 today 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 practice of decorating watches that later gave us our plain white enamel 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 18th century and even into the 19th 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 Brühl, 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 Labors Lost he compares a woman to a German clock still a repairing ever out of frame and never going awright being a watch. A century after Shakespeare's day Dr. 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.'" All of this reminds one of Dickens famous character Captain Cuddle whose watch was evidently of the old school. Readers of Dombie 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. "'Waller!' 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. End of Chapter 8 Recording by James K. White, Chula Vista Recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Tom Mack, Tucson, Arizona Timetelling Through the Ages by Harry Chase Brearley Chapter 9 How a Mechanical Toy Became a Scientific Timepiece Now since we are at last well into the story of the watch, let us glance 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 changes in the moon, then by making such divisions 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 sundials and clip sedra in order to tell the time by the 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 clockwork 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 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 Hook and the Hollander Huygens 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 Hook and Huygens could see that the application of isochronism would be quite as valuable in a watch as in a clock, but they realized 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 hairspring 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 of a much longer wire spring were used and obviously the only way in which this could be done was by making it in the form of a coil. So we have the delicate coiled hairspring as it is found in our own watches today. The principle of the hairspring 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 the 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 before the hairspring came into common use. Today any new device is described in catalogs written up in the papers manufactured in quantities and is quickly carried by travelers in every country. But in those days everything was still made by hand piece by piece and there was comparatively little travel that would miss of its distribution. Ideas made their way very slowly. In fact Julian Leroy rediscovered the principle of isochronism and announced it with a good deal of pride quite ignorant of the fact that hook and Huygens explained it nearly a century before. And so the hairspring 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 timekeeper. 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 dialed. And in 1704 Nicholas Fazio of 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 dollars 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 pin head 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. A last 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 those 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 land 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 stopped 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 the sight of the 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. That sounds a bit strange until one stops to think of the rotation of the earth once in 24 hours. If one could travel around the earth from east to west and a uniform rate in exactly 24 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 a one parallel of latitude. His rate of speed would have to be about 18 miles a minute if he chose to travel along the equator or to state the same thing in another way when it is noon in New York it is 11 a.m. in Chicago 10 a.m. in Denver 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 movements of the 24-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 compare it with the time at the place you had left you would know 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 main spring of civilization pressed hardest upon the brains of inventors and the hands of workmen so from the 16th century onward the leading governments of Europe offered large rewards for a conometer sufficiently accurate to determine the longitude at sea in England parliament offered 20,000 pounds or $100,000 for a timekeeper which throughout a voyage to the west indies would give the longitude within 30 miles this meant that it must keep time within a minute a month or two seconds a day both Huygens and Hook 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 18 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 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 almost on 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 like her the Swiss Parisian Abraham Louis Begay improved the hairspring by bending its outer coil across the others to their center and fascinating 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 of doing away with the Fusy 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 Fusy American makers adopted this idea but the British clung to the Fusy 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 difficult 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 17th and 18th 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 craftsmen had ended after thousands of years in triumph the ticking and trivance of wheels lever 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 and into those of manufacturers its history from this point on is no longer a record of science but a romance of industry end of chapter nine recording by tom mac chapter 10 of time telling through the ages this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Gary B Clayton time telling through the ages by Harry Chase Brearley chapter 10 the worshipful company and English watchmaking from the beginning there are two sides to the history of timekeeping the 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 a very little used 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 19th 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 turned 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 time pieces 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 foreign 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 and 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 hook and hygiens to the year 1627 the year of incorporation of the worshipful clockmakers company imagine such a name being chosen today the worshipful clockmakers 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 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 in 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 condition 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 craftsman each the head of his own house through them were associated to the journeymen or skilled workmen in their employee 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 clockmakers company under its charter granted by Charles I had the power to make rules for the government of all persons following the trade within 10 miles of london and for regulating the trade throughout the kingdom its first master or president was david ramsey who was mentioned as having been quote constructor of horologues to his most sacred majesty james the first end quote and is one of the characters in scott's novel quote the fortunes of nigel end quote its wardens or executives were henry archer john willow and samson shellton and there was besides a fellowship or board of directors the company proceeded at once to forbid all persons quote making buying selling transporting and importing any bad deceitful clocks watches larim sundials or cases for the said trade end quote and full power to search for confiscate and destroy all such inferior goods quote or cause them to be amended end quote 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 tempest emperor rarum or quote time the emperor of things end quote 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 hygen's was of course not an englishman and hook was rather an inventor and a scientist and 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 hook 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 time pieces was in the hands of the clockmakers company and the great names were those of clockmakers 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 passersby and urged 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 quote clockmaker to the king and quote 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 quote the father of English watchmaking and quote he was the leader of his craft in the time of Charles II and he more than anyone else worked out the inventions of hook for actual manufacture he left his father's blacksmith's shop to become a clockmaker 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 watch making history by his improvements Tompion made watches with hairsprings 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 Follyott 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 sixteen thirty-eight 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 seventeen thirteen 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 deadbeat 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 hairsprings Graham also is buried in Westminster Abbey his body lies besides 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 today 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 quote conscientious objector quote 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 the first means had to be devised for excusing him from taking the oath of allegiance it was Quare who originated the practice 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 and 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 the third had bought the masterpiece and the emperors of Russia offered one thousand guineas more than five thousand dollars for a duplicate Arnold Cooley excused himself on the plea that he desired the specimen to remain unique time passed machinery began to be employed and manufacturing and handwork 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 19th 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 everyone 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 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 40 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 and the makers attitude if the law of supply and demand called for something different so much 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 end of chapter 10 recording by Gary B Clayton chapter 11 of time telling through the ages this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org time telling through the ages by Harry Chase Breary chapter 11 what happened in France and Switzerland across the English Channel lives a race of a very different character the 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 area of light 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 today 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 18th 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 jewel butterflies and in wonderful cases painted and enameled and engraved in the G. Pierpont-Morgan collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York there is a watch which in 1800 on the feed day over 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 worst watch today 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 towards 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 but 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 they are 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 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 force at seed which took root in new soil in the hill country of eastern france in the town of autumn there lived a watchmaker named charles cuisine 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 it was back in the days of shakespeare and queen elizabeth while watches were still esteem 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 was 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 cuisine liked switzerland and 13 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 cuisine's appearance but we are considering the beginnings of a great industry and not a mere instances of isolated workmen the man from ulton 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 unable 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 would help the general public by learning to cooperate 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 was which charles cuisine 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 50 years earlier than was the worshipful clockmakers company in england and its members were no ordinary workmen switzerland was and still is a thoroughly independent little country and a man skillful 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 one of their regulations which read quote 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 best teaching him that all that they say and do may rebound to his glory and may further the interests of these people end quote 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 manufacturer 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 ourselves the world will 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 lakeshores and there's the shadows of the snow-topped alps realized something of this responsibility their timepieces were not yet as accurate as our hours of today 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 five of their regulations quote 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 enforced to report all delinquents to the worthy governing board and to punish the offenders in accordance with gravity of their fault end of quote 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 there 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 Besson soon 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's so great a reputation that during the 17th and 18th 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 geniements moved to other cities where they became dealers in Geneva watches it is said that in 1725 the city of constant noble contained as many as 88 mercantile agents who had become established in this way 100 years after founding of the guild Geneva was producing 5000 watches a year having 100 masters of the guild and 300 journeymen now 5000 watches is no small output when it is considered that each one must be constructed entirely by hand and occupy the matter of weeks in the making yet by 1799 the city contained nearly 6 000 watchmakers and jewelers and was producing 50 000 timepieces a year not many miles to the northward from Geneva is another mountain city that of Neuchâtel Neuchâtel also contained an enterprising and skillful population for the swiss people seemed to have been naturally ingenious and skillful in the use of tools doubtless the mountainous character of the country had had something to do with this fact farming and fruit raising are slow hard work in the rocky soil and severe climate and the making of bulky articles is not desirable where transportation must be head 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 skillful handwork 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 Neuchâtel district not far away yet this district is another great center of the industry it is said that in 1680 more than 100 years after Charles Cousine moved to Geneva a horse dealer from the little town of La Seine came home from his travels and brought with him an English watch great was the wonder that it excited among the simple people of this 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 has been handled the horse dealer knew nothing of the mechanism but was very anxious to have the work set right it chanced that there was a young locksmith in La Seine a lad of only 15 named Daniel Jean Richard who was so skillful 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 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's tools he did produce a watch which would run and which would tell time after fashion the first watch ever made in the Neuchâtel district but it did not satisfy his artist 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 seize a machine the Kenny 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 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 Neuchâtel 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 Neuchâtel 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 Neuchâtel people had no difficulty in finding customers we read that 140 of their merchants went twice a year to the Leipzig fair where they sometimes sold watches to the value of four million francs 800 000 dollars 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 today 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 60 000 swiss people are directly employed in the swiss watch industry and over 300 000 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 fusy another who introduced the use of jewels for reducing friction and the stem wind is also of swiss origin it was the swiss too who early in the 19th 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 today it is to be found in all watches of the higher grades the swiss invention of the fusy described in chapter eight 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 ran 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 impressed 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 unbound and thus the pressure remained equal and the use of the fusy 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 beautiful 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 geniva this then was a situation at about the middle of the 19th 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 porn 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 any one 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 remain the need both for a high-grade watch at a reasonable price and for a cheap watch that will 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 misopotamia had kept their knowledge a secret for themselves down through more than 40 centuries only a few had possessed the means of accurately telling time but now had comes the railroad the telegraph the modern factory the newspaper and many other developments which speeded up the movements of humanity in the rush and world 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 that 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 end of chapter 11