In 1344 James Dondi constructed at Padua, by the command of Hubert, prince of Carrara, a clock similar to Wallingford's, and thus obtained for himself the title of Horologius; which, it is said, is still borne by his descendants in Florence. In 1364 Henry de Wyck, a German, made a clock for Charles V. of France, which was erected in the tower of his palace. This clock was regulated by a balance, the teeth of the crown-wheel acted upon two small levers called pallets which projected from, and formed part of, an upright spindle or staff, on which was fixed the balance, and the clock was regulated by shifting the weights placed at each end of the balance.

In 1368 Edward granted protection against 'injuriam, molestiam, violentiam, damnum, aut gravamen' to three Dutch horologers, John and William Uneman and John Lietuyt, who had been invited to this country from Delft.

Chaucer, who died in 1400, speaks of a cock crowing with such regularity as to rival a clock:

Whether the abbey horologe referred to was really a clock in our sense of the term, or merely the bell rung by the monks at a certain hour indicated by the clepsydra, is matter of conjecture, but the probability is, that clockmaking had advanced sufficiently about this time to have given rise to Chaucer's simile. Froissart speaks of a famous clock which struck the hours, and was remarkable for its mechanism, and which was removed in 1332 by Philip the Hardy, duke of Burgundy, from Courtrai to his capital at Dijon.

After this date frequent mention is made of clocks in various histories, some of which instruments remain even to the present day. Dr Heylin thus describes a famous clock and dial in the Cathedral of Lunden in Denmark. 'In the dial are to be seen distinctly the year, month, week, day, and every hour of the day throughout the year, with the feasts, both those which are movable and fixed, together with the motions of the sun and moon, and their passage through each degree of the zodiac. Then for the clock, it is so framed by artificial engines that whensoever it is to strike, two horsemen encounter one another, giving as many blows apiece as the bell sounds hours, and on the opening of a door there appeareth a theatre, the Virgin Mary on a throne with Christ in her arms, and the three kings or Magi (with their several trains) marching in order, doing humble reverence, and presenting severally their gifts,—two trumpeters sounding all the while, to adorn the pomp of the procession.'

The clock at Hampton Court is one of the most ancient in England, but all that remains of the original structure is the dial and work connected with it, facing the east, in the second court of the old part of the building erected by Wolsey. Of the ancient body or works there is no record, and its maker is unknown, but it bears the initials N.O. and the date 1540.

There is a celebrated antique clock at Strasburg which is described as striking the quarter-hours by four figures, symbols of the ages of man;—the first being struck by a child with an apple, the second by a youth with an arrow, the third by a man with a staff, and the fourth by an old man with a crutch, then came Death, who struck the hour, and thus reminded the observer that his last hour would eventually arrive.

From the evidence adduced respecting the origin and inventors of the clock it is not unreasonable to conclude with Ferdinand Berthoud (a Frenchman who wrote much and was a great authority upon the subject) that such a clock as that which was constructed by Henry de Wyck for Charles the Wise of France, was not the invention of one man, but was the result of a series of inventions made at different times by various persons, each of which is worthy to be considered a separate invention. It was the simple employment of the natural force of gravity as to the fall of bodies in free space, that paved the way to the extreme accuracy and constancy of rate which belong to the clocks of modern times, and the conclusion to which Mons. Berthoud arrived respecting the progression of the essential improvements is thus stated:—

1. Toothed wheel-work was known in ancient times, and particularly to Archimedes, whose instrument was provided with a maintaining power, but had no regulator or controlling mechanism.

2. The weight applied as a maintainer at first had a fly, most probably similar to that of a kitchen-jack.

3. The ratchet-wheel and click for winding up the weight, without detaching the teeth of the great wheel.

4. The regulation of the fly depending upon the state of the air, it was abandoned, and a balance substituted.

5. An escapement next became indispensable, as constituting with the balance a more regular check than a fly upon the tendency which a falling weight has to accelerate its velocity.

6. The application of a dial-plate and hand to indicate the hours was a consequence of the regularity introduced into the going part.

7. The striking portion, to proclaim at a distance, without the aid of a watcher, the hour that was indicated: and this was followed by the alarum.

8. The reduction and accommodation of all this bulky machinery to a portable and compact size, as in watches.

Such a succession of ingenious contrivances, introduced by different men to improve upon the first rude instrument, is perfectly analogous to the successive improvements which have been made in the modern clock, since that of Henry de Wyck's was constructed. Large iron wheels, continually exposed to the oxidizing influence of the air, in which unequal and ill-shapen teeth were cut with the inaccuracy of a manual operation, were by no means calculated to transmit the maintaining power with perfect regularity to the balance, supposing it to have been a good regulator; but when it is further remembered that the alternate direct pushes of the escape-wheel against the pallets must have produced jerks, and destroyed, or greatly disturbed, the regularity of this most essential part of the mechanism, great accuracy was not to be expected; even minutes were deemed too small portions of time to be shown by such a machine. The clock was set daily by some person specially appointed to the office, and even then was not to be depended upon, for forty minutes' variation in twenty-four hours was not thought to be an ill performance.

The most ancient clocks had no pendulum such as we now see, but had instead a balance vibrating on the top of the clock, as seen in illustration, p. 108, which is an example of ancient clockwork.

Upon the invention of springs, in lieu of weights, as the maintaining or motive power in clocks, which was made towards the close of the fifteenth century, it became obvious that time-pieces might be rendered portable, and that the new motive power, a coiled spring, could act independently of position. This discovery was of great importance, and yet to whom we are indebted for it is unknown; the value of the invention became still more apparent when the fusee, or mechanism for equalizing the variable power of a coiled spring, was applied. Berthoud says, 'It was soon perceived that the action of the spring being much greater at the height of its tension than at the end, great variations in the watch resulted therefrom. This was remedied by a mechanism called stack-freed, that is, a kind of curve, by means of which the great spring of the barrel acted on a straight spring, which opposed itself to its action, and when this spring was nearly down, acted more feebly.' The word stack-freed was stated to be German, and therefore gave rise to a supposition that the invention was of German origin, but the word is not to be found in a German dictionary, and, if ever German, it was probably strictly technical, and soon became obsolete. Berthoud has given a drawing and description of a portable clock, probably by Jourdain, without a fusee, and some of the modern continental watch-makers have, perhaps, derived their idea from it of making a watch keep time without a fusee. Up to the close of the 15th century the motive power in clocks was always obtained by means of weights; the invention of the coiled spring rendered them portable.

Whatever be the date or origin of the watch or portable clock, certain it is that there was mention made of such an instrument as far back as 1494, by Gaspar Visconti, an Italian poet, who in a sonnet describes 'Certain small and portable clocks made with a little ingenuity, and which are continually going, showing the hours, many courses of the planets, the festivals, and striking when the time requires it.' The sonnet is, as it were, composed by a person in love, who compares himself to one of these clocks. One of the earliest places of watch manufacture was Nuremberg, and foremost among its horologers was Peter Hele, who was thus described by Doppelmayer in his 'History of the Mathematicians and Artists of Nuremberg.'

'Peter Hele, a clockmaker, was everywhere esteemed a great artist on account of the pocket-clocks, which, soon after the year 1500, he first made in Nuremberg, with small wheels of steel. The invention, which with great justice may be ascribed to him, being something new, was praised by almost every one, even by the mathematicians of the time, with great admiration. He died 1540. On this subject Johannes CocclÆus, in his Commentary on the Cosmographia of Pomponius Mela, published in Nuremberg in 1511, makes the following announcement:—"Inveniuntur in dies subtiliora, etenim Petrus Hele, juvenis adhuc admodum, opera fecit, quÆ doctissimi admirantur mathematici, nam ex ferro parva fabricat horologia, plurimis digesta rotulis, quÆ, quocunque vertuntur, absque ullo pondere, et monstrant et pulsant XL. horas. Etiamsi in sinu, marsupiove contineantur."' This quotation from CocclÆus may be thus translated:—Ingenious things are just now being invented, for Peter Hele, as yet but a young man, hath made works which even the most learned mathematicians admire, for he fabricates small horologes of iron fitted with many wheels, which, whithersoever they are turned, and without any weight, both show and strike forty hours,—whether they be carried in the bosom or the pocket.

Doppelmayer in continuation says: 'This, already so written by CocclÆus in 1511, shows in the clearest way, that pocket-clocks were made at Nuremberg many years ago, and he has fairly attributed the invention of them to this artist, since it was the most deserving of admiration, and the newest of his time, and which will be considered as a Nuremberg invention; whence also clocks of this kind were for a long time called Nuremberg living eggs, because they at first used to make them in the form of small eggs, which name is to be found in the German translation in chapter 26 of a strange book which F. Rabelais has left behind him. Hence it is evident how erroneous it is to ascribe, as many do, the invention of small striking-clocks, as of these pocket-clocks, to Isaac Habrecht, a well-known mathematician who lived about the beginning of the last century, and dwelt at Strasburg, whereas our Peter Hele had made them in Nuremberg 100 years before.'

The art of watch-making soon extended itself over Europe, for we find that in France, in 1544, Francis I. enacted a statute in favour of the corporation of master clockmakers at Paris, to the effect that no one should be permitted to make horologes unless he should have been previously admitted into that society. Of the most antique watches there are some very interesting collections at the South Kensington Museum and other places,—originally brought together by private persons whose antiquarian knowledge has lit up the subject with wonderful interest. It would be impossible to furnish in a volume such as this, a regular series of such productions, showing the development of artistic skill in the embellishment and design of watches; we leave that duty to some future writer who shall prepare an edition de luxe, and show therein, in splendid colour-printing, all the beauties of enamelling on the precious metals, all the elegance, as well as perhaps the oddity, of design, which are to be observed in these highly-interesting works of art. We will, for the nonce, be content with interspersing our pages with a few examples, not perhaps of the highest quality in point of design, but yet worthy of notice, either as showing variety of form or as being made valuable by historical associations. One of the earliest specimens of very small watches which are now extant is the one given on the next page.

This little time-piece dates from the period when blacksmiths were watch-makers, or at all events when watch-makers were blacksmiths. The works are all of iron; the case was made, probably, before glass was used for such instruments, and it is not unlikely that this watch is of as old a shape as even the Nuremberg eggs. A more ornamental time-piece, of perhaps a somewhat later date, is the curious little instrument which is portrayed in our next illustration; the works of which are also of iron. It possesses the advantage of serving either as a clock or a watch, or as both, being of a portable size, and yet when set on a stand would serve as a pretty ornament to a drawing-room table. The bell at the top is so arranged that when the hand touches a trigger the hour is struck upon it, but the bell itself may be detached without any interference with the movement by which the time is kept.

A clock was purchased by Queen Victoria at Strawberry Hill sale and is now at Windsor, which was a present from Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn, and since from Lady Elizabeth Germains to Horace Walpole. It is described by Walpole as a clock of silver gilt, richly chased, engraved and ornamented with fleurs-de-lys, little heads, &c. On the top sits a lion holding the arms of England, which are also on the sides. On the weights are the initial letters of Henry and Anne within true lover's knots, at the top 'Dieu et mon droit,' at the bottom 'the most happy.'

The emperor Charles V. (Henry's contemporary) was so much pleased with observing the movements of time-pieces, that it is related of him, that he frequently sat after his dinner with a number of them upon the table before him, and that even after his retirement to the monastery of St Just he still continued his interest in them. He endeavoured to adjust their movements and keep them in order, but, upon finding it impossible to make any two watches agree with each other in keeping time, he was induced to reflect how much more absurd it must be for a man to attempt to regulate the more varied and hidden emotions of nations in consonance with those in his own breast. Ancient watches used to strike the time, and we read of Charles V. and Louis XI. that, watches having been stolen from them in certain crowds, the thief was detected by their striking the hour.

In 1577 Moestlin had a clock so constructed as to make just 2528 beats in an hour, 146 of which were counted during the sun's passage over a meridian, and thus determined its diameter. The alarum or alarm is one of the earliest additions to the mechanism of the clock, and is still used in Dutch clocks. This contrivance took its origin from the circumstance of prayers being read at stated periods in monasteries by night as well as by day, such an invention being of course of much service in arousing the priest to perform his duties.

In 1631 the Company of Clockmakers was incorporated in England by Charles I., who granted them a charter prohibiting the importation of clocks, watches, and alarms. So that at this period Englishmen were sufficiently skilled in the production of horological instruments to consider their importation in the light of an intrusion. The Company consisted of a Master, three Wardens, and ten or more Assistants who had power to make by-laws for the government of all persons using the trade in or within ten miles of London. They were authorized to enter, with a constable or other officer, any ships, vessels, warehouses, shops, or other places, where they shall suspect bad and deceitful works to be made or kept, and if such were found they seized them in the King's name, and having proved their unworthiness, the objectionable works were broken up and destroyed. There are many instances mentioned of such 'searches' upon the Books of the Company, and although the practice has long become obsolete, for in these times of free trade no such restrictions would be tolerated, yet it would perhaps be found that some testing by a modern 'searcher' or tester would be of some protection to the public now-a-days, when thousands of watches are sold which, like Peter Pindar's razors, are intended rather for the market than for use. The following are illustrations of some time-keepers of the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century.

This is a very curious but not uncommon combination of the watch with the dial,—the latter being marked inside the watch-case and having a gnomon moving on a hinge so as to allow of its lying flat and being enclosed within the case when not in use.

Our next illustration is of one of the earliest examples of a round watch made in England, the date being 1593. It contains not only a dial showing the hour, but a sort of general calendar in miniature.

Of much about the same date is the following example in silver and brass. It is of the same style of time-keeper, and shows how our forefathers liked to know not only the time of day but the period of the month; and how they watched the moon's changes, and in a word made an almanac of their watches.

It was not an unusual thing for religious persons who used rosaries at their devotions, to add to their beads a miniature skull, with a view it may be to remind themselves of the frailty of life by way of stimulus to the preparation for the future state. When watches were invented the Memento Mori death's head was made into a watch-case, as in the illustration on page 44.

The Lauder family, of Grange and Fountain Hall, possess the Memento Mori Watch there engraved, they having inherited it from their ancestors, the Setoun family. It was given by Queen Mary to Mary Setoun, of the house of Wintoun, one of the four Marys, maids of honour to the Scottish Queen. This very curious relic must have been intended to be placed on a prie-dieu, or small altar, in a private oratory; for it is too heavy to have been carried in any way attached to the person. The watch is of the form of a skull: on the forehead is the figure of Death, standing between a palace and a cottage; around is this legend from Horace: 'Pallida mors Æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Regumque turres.' On the hind part of the skull is a figure of Time, with another legend from Horace: 'Tempus edax rerum tuque invidiosa vetustas.' The upper part of the skull bears representations of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, and of the Crucifixion, each with Latin legends; and between these scenes is open-work, to let out the sound when the watch strikes the hours upon a small silver bell, which fills the hollow of the skull, and receives the works within it when the watch is shut.

Nor about this time was the opportunity omitted of inculcating by means of pictorial watch illustrations, that Scriptural knowledge which was in the less educated times not so much taught by books as by pictures. The watch case given on the following page is of about 1600. It is obviously of English workmanship, and is a fair specimen of the period,—it may be, indeed, that, looking at it, one may well doubt whether art has much advanced in watch-ornamentation during the last 270 years or so.

We give our next illustration as another example of an ancient Table Watch. This watch has a revolving dial at the top, by means of which and the fixed point or hand the time is indicated (page 46).

Such was the state of clockwork when Galileo, the great astronomer, then a medical student at Pisa, happened to discover, while gazing up at the roof of the cathedral when he should, perhaps, have been devotionally occupied, that the lamps suspended therefrom by chains of equal lengths, swung, and made their vibrations in long or short arcs, in almost the same space of time,—a fact, the truth of which he ascertained by the beats of his pulse.

This isochronal property, as it was called, was described in a treatise which he published at Paris in 1639, entitled 'L'Usage du Cadron ou de l'Horloge physique universelle.' The first application which Galileo made of his discovery was the professional one of testing the rate and variations of the pulse, and it is even denied that he did more than suggest its applicability to clockwork.

The honours of the invention of the pendulum-clock have been contested by Vincentio Galilei, son of the great astronomer, who is said to have made a pendulum-clock at Venice in 1649, and Christian Huygens, a noted Dutch mathematician, who (in his excellent treatise, 'De Horologio Oscillatorio,' which was the foundation of most of the subsequent improvements in horometrical machines) clearly shows that he had constructed a pendulum-clock previous to 1658. His reputation will be somewhat obscured, however, if we yield to the claims of an Englishman named Richard Harris, an ordinary workman, who, it is said, invented the pendulum-clock which was fixed in the turret of St Paul's, Covent Garden, in 1642, and which is generally believed to have been the first pendulum-clock in Europe. The pendulum when first applied to clocks was suspended by a silken cord, and the arc described by the bob or weight at its end was a segment of a circle, but it being found that this was in opposition to scientific knowledge, and that the curve described by it should properly be part of a cycloid or oval; Huygens tried to remedy the error by causing the silk cord in its motion to side or strike against a curved piece of brass, but he thereby caused a greater error than he corrected. Dr Hooke afterwards suspended the pendulum by a thin flexible piece of steel, the bending of which, as the pendulum swings from side to side, produces the required cycloidal motion. In 1658 Dr Hooke invented the Anchor Escapement which is still in use together with the flexible spring to the pendulum above described. Before, however, we proceed further with our historical summary of the progress of watch and clock making, it may be well to introduce here two illustrations of the watches worn by two of the most eminent Englishmen of about this period.

The following watch was made about 1625 by Jonn Midwall in Fleet Street, who was Warden of the Clockmakers' Co. in 1635, and died about 1638. It is one of the early examples of a fob-watch. The case is of plain silver, fitted with glass over the face, and the chain of the same metal. The family crest of Cromwell was a demi-lion holding a ring in its paw, but the Protector substituted for the ring the handle of a tilting spear, as engraved on the chain; the Cromwell arms on the reverse, and the initials O.C., certify to its genuineness. The arms as engraved and the crest are identical with those on the banner used at the Protector's funeral. The silver seals which were at one time attached to this chain are now absent, but they were a few years back in the possession of some descendants of the Cromwellian family, who allowed Sir Charles Fellows to take impressions of them. The watch, as it is here engraved, remained for upwards of a century in Holland, was there purchased by an English nobleman who presented it to his godson, and by him given to Sir C. Fellows, who believed that it was probably worn by Cromwell from 1625 until his death in 1658. In shape it reminds one of the Nuremberg egg watch. The following is an excellent example of an early watch-case of the round shape still in use.

The history of this watch is somewhat singular. From inscriptions which appear upon it, it seems to have been made by William Bunting, (whose name is entered upon the books of the Clockmakers' Co. as elected to their court in 1645, he being then resident in Pope's Head Alley, Cornhill,) in 1631, and presented to John Milton in the same year, which was the date of the poet's leaving Christ's College, Cambridge, and taking up his residence with his father in Horton, Buckinghamshire, he being then about 23 years of age. From that time down to the early part of the present century we have no record of the watch or its possessors, but that in 1819 it was bequeathed by the last surviving member of an old family in Baltimore in the United States, who had treasured it for some generations, to some old ladies residing near London, the bequest including also a number of coins of the reigns of Charles the 1st and 2nd, some medals of Fairfax and others, as well as a few rings, but nothing of a later date. The chest which contained all these relics safely arrived in London, and not long after was, with its contents, offered for sale to an eminent chronometer-maker. The coins and medals being in an excellent state of preservation were soon disposed of at high prices, but the watch being only silver gilt, and steel-faced, was considered to be of little value, and a few shillings only were allowed as a fair price for it. It was put into a drawer in its discoloured state and there remained until 1828, when for the first time the inscription on the face of it was discovered upon its being accidentally cleaned up, and it was then presented to Sir Charles Fellows, well known for his connoisseurship in such matters, and as a collector of ancient time-pieces. The maker's name upon the inside of this watch is thus given: 'Gulielmus Bunting, London, 1631.' Sir Charles Fellows died in 1860 and bequeathed this one watch only to the nation; but his relict, Lady Fellows, who died in 1874, left the whole of the celebrated collection of ancient watches which her husband had brought together, to the British Museum.

In 1675 Tompion, under Hooke's direction, made a watch with a spiral balance for Charles II. Up to this period watches had but one hand and only pointed the hours, but the spiral pendulum spring having been applied to the balance, it regulated the oscillations with some nicety, and the minute wheel and hand were soon after added.

A watch was found upon Guido Fawkes when he was arrested for the Gunpowder Plot, which had been purchased by Percy and himself the day before 'to try conclusions' for the long and short burning of the touchwood with which he had prepared to set fire to the train of powder.

The following is one of the earliest examples we have met with of an

It is apparently of French make, date of 1660, and is a remarkably neat and small specimen of the watches of that time.

The annexed illustration is a curious example of a watch of the date of 1580, to which a pendulum was added in 1670, and which is still capable of keeping time.

Our next illustration is another specimen of antique design and ornamentation.

In 1676 Barlow, a London clockmaker, invented some mechanism whereby a person at night might ascertain, in the dark, the hour last struck, by pulling a certain part of it, and this contrivance gave the name of repeater to all time-pieces in which it was used. For this invention Barlow tried to obtain a patent, but he was opposed by Daniel Quare and the Clockmakers' Company, who said that Quare was the original inventor. The question was tried by James II., and the decision given in favour of Quare. The following memorandum was entered upon the books of the Company with reference thereto. '1688, Sep. 29.—Be it remembered that in pursuance of the order of the Court of the 8th day of February, 1687-8, and according to the order of the Court of the 5th March, 1687-8, the patent endeavoured to be obtained by one Mr Edward Barlow, a priest, and to be granted to him by the king's majesty for his sole making and managing of all pulling repeating pocket-clocks and watches, he pretending to be the true and first inventor of that art and invention, was by diligence and endeavour of the Master, Wardens, and Assistants of this Company, with great charge and expense, which was borne by and out of the stock of the Company, very successfully prevented, and upon the 2nd March, 1687-8, ordered by the king in Council not to be granted.'

In 1695 Tompion invented the cylinder escapement with horizontal wheel, but this was not brought into general use until some time after, when it was much modified. It was, however, a very valuable invention, and exercised considerable influence upon the shape of subsequent watches, inasmuch as it dispensed with the vertical crown wheel, and permitted them to be made more flat and therefore more conveniently portable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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