of the Life a7id Works of M. Br'eguet. ^05 



continuance of the shock the pivots support nothing. Their 

 place is supplied by a stronger mass, which comes into use at 

 the instant of danger, and soon after re-establishes them in their 

 former place. 



Every person knows what advantages the nautical sciences, 

 geography, and astronomy have derived from instruments for 

 measuring time. The most enlightened governments have en- 

 couraged researches for perfecting marine watches. In Eng- 

 land, at the suggestion of Newton, the Parliament had offered 

 and awarded premiums to inventors. Harrison received about 

 500,000 francs, after having devoted to these researches more 

 than forty years. In France, honour, academical prizes, &c. 

 roused two great artists, Peter Leroy, and Ferdinand Berthoud, 

 the contemporaries and rivals of Harrison. They had no 

 knowledge of the English inventions, which were for a long 

 time kept secret; and both of them succeeded at the same 

 time, and by different methods, in resolving the question pro- 

 posed, with a precision greatly superior to that which had been 

 pointed out in England as sufficient for obtaining the promised 

 rewards. 



The public suffrage, and the zeal of individuals, have pro- 

 moted in this country the progress of that art. We have seen 

 one of the members of this academy, the Marquis de Courtan- 

 vaux, equip a frigate at his own expence, to try, during a long 

 navigation, the marine chronometers of Peter Leroy. 



The works of the two French artists were not rewarded till 

 they had been submitted to^the most extraordinary trials. It 

 was found that in the middle of the agitations of the sea, of 

 vicissitudes of temperature, and of the most violent commotions 

 of the air produced by three successive discharges of all the 

 artillery of the vessel, these admirable instruments preserved 

 their going regular in voyages of very long duration. 



The wishes of the two governments have been at last accom- 

 plished, and we may readily conceive how difficult it has be- 

 come, after such efforts and discoveries, to give to marine 

 chronometers a higher degree of perfection. Ferdinand Ber- 

 thoud, his pupils, and those chiefly who have extended his ta- 

 lents and his name, have made fresh progress in this art. It is 

 also by this kind of success that M. Breguet has been placed in 



