Royal Institution of Great Britain, 



421 



ttient is to modify each of these tendencies ; to transmit the accele- 

 rating tendency of the escape wheel to the decreasing tendency of 

 the pendulum, and vice versd, thus to neutralize the tendency to 

 change, and to make them move together and equally. After the 

 escape wheel has, by means of one part of the escapement, given 

 the pendulum an impulse, it would run on with increased velocity, 

 but that the pendulum, in return, employs another part of the 

 escapemtnt to stop the escape wheel ; and this is the conflict which 

 is always going on ; the escape wheel impels the pendulum and 

 then escapes (thence its name), but it moves only half the interval 

 between two of its teeth before it is caught by another part of the 

 escapement. 



This is the process which takes place in all escapements, though 

 under very different circumstances, and by very different means : it 

 will be rendered intelligible, as regards two of the most common 

 escapements, by the annexed diagram: 



bH'l 



