The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-12-12

sion of labor in this delicate science, Il was
stated in evidence before a committee of the
House Of Commons, that there are one hun
dred and two distinct branches Of the art of
Matchmaking, and that the watch -fnisher,
whose duty it is to put together the scatte red
parts, is the only one of the hundred and two
persons who can work in any other depart
ment than his own. The hair-spring gives a
very curious proof of the value that can be
given to a small piece of steel by manual
labor. Four thousand hair-sprngs scarcely
weigh more than a single ounce, but often
cost more than thousand pounds. "The
pendulum-spring of a watch, which governs
the vibrations of the balance, costs, at the
retail price, twopence, and weighs three
twentieths Of grain; while the retail price of
pound of the best iron, the raw material out
of which fifty thousand such springs are
made, is the sum of twopenoe." Mr..
Bennett whose advocacy of female
labor in the watch-trade has rendered him OBJ
noxious to some persons-states that he found
at Neufchatel, where the Swiss watches are
chiefly made, twenty thousand women em-
ployed upon the more delicate parts of the
watch movement.
The last part Of this very interesting volume
is devoted to that perfection of timekeepers,
the chronometer, by which is found the longi-
tude of ship at sea. Twenty thousand
pounds was offered by the British Government
for the invention of this instrument, which
was awarded to John Harrison in 1765. His
chronometer, in the first instance, was dis
credited on a voyage to Jamaica, since it diff
fered with the chart by a degree and a half,
but it was eventually discovered that it was
the chart that was wrong. OF how accu-
Tately chronometers are made, there are
numberless instances; here is one with which
we must conclude. CATER several months spent
at sea, writes DIR. Arnott, Gin long passage
from South America to Asia, my pocket
chronometer, and others on board, announced
one morning that a certain point of land was
then bearing north from heship, at a distance
of fifty miles. In an hour afterwards, when
mist had cleared away, the looker-out on the
mast gave the joyous call of Gland ahead |"
verifying the reports of the chronometers
almost to one mile, after voyage Of thousands
of miles. 1t is allowable at such moment,
with the dangers and uncertainties of ancient
navigation before the mind, to exult in con-
templating what man has now achieved. Had
the rate of the wonderful little instrument in
all that time quickened or slackened ever so
slightly, its announcement would have been
useless or even worse; but in the night and in
the day, in storm and in calm, in heat and in
| cold, its steady beat went on, keeping exact
account of the rolling of the earth and stars;
and in the midst of the trackless waves which
retain no mark, it was always ready to tell its
magic tale, indicating the very spot over the
globe over which it had arrived
Among the relics of the Franklin expedition
brought home from the Arctic regions by Nc
| Clintock was a pocket-chronomete in excel
lent preservation; it had stopped at o'clock.
The owner PROBABLY had done with Time ere
that Chambers Journal.