Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-04-14
WATCH MAGNETISM.
What Causes the Trouble and How it
Can Be Easily Remedied.
ELECTRICITY VERSUS MAGNETISM.
False Notions About the Influences Exerted
by DynamOs.
HOW A WATCH CAN BE DEMAGNETIzED
WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH ]

WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPATcH.1
Watch your watchesL is generally the in
struction impaired to sightseers on entering
the dynamo room of an electrical establish
ment while dynamos are in operation. Now
the natural tendency of the minds in these
sightseers is to ask, why? If they do not
do it audibly, it is there all the
same, and keeps turning itself over
and over until the owner is tempted
to do Just what he or she is told to.
but not intended should be done, take it
out of the pocket and look at it. My ad-
vice would be ''leaVe it at home" or with
your "uncle" while on tour of inVestiga-
tion of this sort, for just so sure as you enter
that room your watch will be magnetized
and then you will have the confidence in
your matchmaker shattered if not entirely
destroyed, by finding that since he last re-
paired it, it does not keep time. You go to
him again and he looks at it, them examines
and pronounces the awful sentence, Mag
netized." You look at him with contempt
and say you know better; if it was magnet
lied it would stop like our grandpa's clock,
never to go again.
Now there is no greater mistake, yet so
generally believed, as this. A watch when
magnetized stops only from this cause while
in very strong magnetic field" and will
start of again on being removed from that
field" if given slight jar.
WHAT CAUSES THE TROUBLE.
Then comes the query: What does i, do,
then? What effect does it exert over it?
Now this is the point which wish you to
note. "It loses time" But how much? you
ask. This is very hard to answer, as a great
deal depends upon the construction of the
movement, the style of ease-hunting or
open face-whether you work around or come
in contact with iron or steel OBJ
jects, such as safes, engines, iron
pillars, girders or even smaller objects, as
these will change the directions of the lines
of ''force" 1 have found from observation
that the variations range from ~ one min
ute to 20 in "a hours, according to eondi-
tions, the general average being from 81 to
z minutes per day.
Many persons suppose that electricity is
magnetism, and vice versa. Electricity is
no more magnetism than steam is water, or
apples are appletrees, but the one is the
production Of the other. Electricity is gen.
Grated from magnetism by permanent or
electromagnetic under certain conditions and
operations known by electricians and some
others, and is of itself perfectly harmless to
watches even were they to be put in circuit
with electric lights, as LIast. week placed>a
fine movement in a circuit of 1000 volts for
10 minutes, and on removing could not ind
the slightest trace of magnetism in it.
SOME FALSE IDEAS.
Another very false idea is the finer the
watch the less liability to magnetic action,
when the truth is the finer it is the more
magnetism it will retain on being Charged ''
j. e. magnetized, and in consequences the
more time, it will loose, for the finer the
watch the finer the adjustment and in con-
sequence the closer contact of the parts
affected. Some say, "Oh, never was in a
dynamo room and my watch could not be
magnetized.
It is not in the electric light plants that
all the magnetism exists, for since electrici-
ty has been used as q motor force it exists
around every motor, whether under q
street car, in an Office running q fan or
printing press, or exciting plating battery.
Yet who ever suspected the relay or sounder
on telegraph operators des (, the wonder
full telephone and many other appliances too
numerous to mention with which you come
in contact every day.
Another new invention has Just made its
appearance In Cleveland, by which a crane
is fitted with a large magnet and used to
load cars with steel rails and large pieces of
iron, imparting its influence to all steel OBJ
jects within its range, thus practically
bringing the laboring men in daily contact
with this unsuspected trouble to watches.
Some say when a watch is magnetiZed il
is destroyed. This is again false, for by
demagnetiz1ng it can be made to operate az
well as ever. Do not trade them off as
worthless, bat take and have them demag-
netiZed, and all will be delighted at home
to see the head of the house on time for
dinner. j. b. STEPHENSON.