Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-10-06
CLOCKS AND WATCHES.
LONG PERIOD OF INVENTION BEGiN--
 MING WITH THE SUN DIAL.

The "C1epsydra" of the Ancients-sThe
 Water Clock-Use of a Spring Instead
 of weights-The First watch-An Im-
 portant Improvement.
 Between the sun dial and the little, golden cased, ticking. pocket time piece is a long period of invention. Thirty-one years ago the first American watch was made. It was cumbersome affair, constructed under diff faculties, but was a wide development from even the neurological devices that followed the sun dial Earliest among these was clepsydra, or "water stealer," a transparent, graduated vase filled with the pure liquid of nature which slowly stole away through
 little aperture in the bottom. The receding surface marked the going of the hours. The olepsydra was used in ancient China and Egypt under the Ptolemies Pompey intro duced 1t into Roman courts, and the ~Britons used it when Caesar went among them. The mechanical ingenuity and skill of many na- tions were employed in the construction of the clepsydra. It devised in statuary, with tears flowing from the eyes; it was made in floating forms that arose and fell with the water and pointed to the hours en- graved upon an upright scale.
 An improvement was made in this kind of l timepiece by the introduction of little
 
 l municating motion to the hands upon a dial. Finally the clepsydra grew into an ingenious and complicated water clock. A thousand years ago Persian caliph sent one to the Emperor Charlemagne which had a striking apparatus With the completion of each twelve hours twelve doors in the face opened, ! from which issued twelve automaton horse men, who waited until the striking ceased and then rode back again. The timekeeper {l,NIO i%r,,e aAl.. 1 primitive clepsydra. Fine sand was substi- 1 tuted for the water.
 INVENTION OF THE CLOCK. The invention of the clock is claimed by many different people and attributed to many eras. The Chinese declare they owned clocks | 4,O00 years ago The Germans insist that the l first mechanical clock was made by them l only eight centuries back. The word origin ally signif1ed bell and the French "cloche" still retains it's meaning. Clocks were re- garded curiositieS until the Eleventh century, when they were placed in all the monasteries. In this manner arose the fashion of placing clocks in church towers. | Even the use of clocks by saintly men did not keep the common folk from regarding l them as the devils own handiwork.
 1 In the early part of the Fifteenth century it ! was discovered that 'clock work" could be set 1 in motion as we'll by the gradual uncoiling l of spring as by the running down of weights, l and that these motions could be made iso- l chronous by 8 balance wheel acting upon the 1 escapement. But it remained for Calico to 1 discover the great principle of the pendulum | and reveal it to mankind. Applied to tha accuracy. Until after the Revolution scarcely l a clock ticked on Americas coast. Sun dials ! and hour glasses suff1ced for those slow days l of religious rigor. Now the American clock tells the hour even in far off Jerusalem, in
 the Chinese capital, in the heart of Siberia. ! The first watch devised was called a pocket clock" or Nuremberg animated egg" It
 was made in 1477 by Peter Hele, a clock
 maker of Nuremberg. It took years labor to make It. When it was finished it varied
 nearly an hour day from true time. It re- quired winding twice day, and the price l asked for it and similar ones subsequently
 made was $500. It was the size and shape
 of a goose egg. It had only one hand and no watch with more was made for many 1 years. Nothing was known of hair springs
 in the days of the one handed watch. Hele l invented the fuSee But for 125 years the l fusee chain was made of catgut, material peculiarly susceptible to atmospheric changes.
 The library of the Waltham watch factory l contains a watch bearing the date of 1900 ! which has the catgut fusee chain.
 THE CoILED HAIR SPRING.
 ! The application of the coiled hair spring l was the most important improvement in ! watch making. It is attributed both to Dr. { Robert Hooke and the astronomer Hughens. l Jewels were first used in the construction of
 watches in 100. Previously the pivots ran
 on metallic bearings, which soon wore 1 out, making constant repairing a ne
 cessity The diamond, ruby, sapphire,
 chrysoite, garnet and agate arc the ! precious stones used for the bearings
 upon which the pivots rest. Pivots of brass ! or steel will run for generations in jeweled bearings without any perceptlble wear . Very rare watches are jeweled with dia-
 monds, sapphires and rubies. For all prac- tical purposes garnets and aqua marines an- , swer as we'll Montana is beginning to sup
 ply garnets. Precious stones for watch fac ) tory use are bought by the carat.
 ; One popular little time keeper for ladies l has fifteen jewels, all of ruby. The stones 1 are cut into "planks," and then into "joists' , by circular saws and afterwards broken into l cubes. Then each is turned out in lathe , ! exactly as bed post is turned out in fur T niture factory. By this time it weighs less than one-eighty-thousandth of a pound Troy. 7 ! Ii is afterward burnished into its set&ng-a . l little circle of brass.
 The English watch attained high develop | ment with John Harrison's invention of the l compensation balance wheel in 1767. French r l and Swiss watchmakers very nearly aban- a doned two of the chief features of the Eng ). fish watch, considering them unnecessary. }. These were the fusee chain and the vertical a escapement. They threw out more than 6OC
 of the 500 parts of the cumbersome English
 watch. For fifty years were the industriou: a Swiss the chief watchmakers of the earth. o The operatives of the Elgin factory are IS about equally divided, male and female g Girls are taught their trades ill the factory It but men usually are practical workers befor' ? being,employed in any department.-Chicagt ' Herald &
 IS 4 Memory of BabyhoOd. l. l h, a racant nr1nhe1. of The Medical NeM