68 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



the twenty or thirty holes of different sizes are drilled in the larger plates all 

 at once. As the tools are held in their allotted places by iron " muscles/' 

 they cannot fail to do this work just where it is wanted, nor can there be 

 the slightest deviation from the perpendicular in the sides or walls of the 

 holes. 



The various parts of the mechanism, leaving the rooms in which they 

 received their shape and size, are carried to the finishing-room. Here each 

 piece is carefully examined with a glass, to see if it is perfect, before it is 

 passed to be hardened, cleaned, and polished. The polishing is all effected 

 by machinery. In the finishing-room, the jewels, also, are set in the pallet 

 which works in the escapement. This pallet is a sort of miniature beam, 

 swinging on a pivot in the centre, and having an angular hook at each end, 

 which works upon the tooth of the escape-wheel. The points of these hooks 

 are opened by machinery, and jewels are inserted in the slits, and then 

 worked down even with the face of the metal. In polishing these pallets, 

 they are placed upon an index to which they are set, so that the angles may 

 be brought down to the microscopic exactitude of shape preeminently indis- 

 pensable in this part of the mechanism. All the brass pieces, when found 

 perfect, are gilded by electro-metallurgy. 



It only remains to describe the dial-rooms, and the system of "putting 

 up" the movements. The dial-rooms are devoted to the production of 

 enamelled dials of all colors. These are made from a species of porcelain 

 manufactured in London, and imported in plates resembling fine China ware. 

 At Waltham, the porcelain is reduced to a paste, and then fused upon thin 

 copper plates the basis of all dials at nearly white heat. When cooled, 

 the dial is ground off smoothly, and then subjected again to the furnace, to 

 perfect its surface and give it a smooth glaze. The dial being now ready 

 for painting, the spaces upon its edge are marked off by an index, the 

 figures are put on roughly with a coarse brush, and, after the ink is dried by 

 slow heat, the superfluous edges are removed with a little wooden point. 

 The minute and second points, and the diminutive letters forming the name 

 of the manufacturing firm, are all put on with a fine hair pencil, the artist's 

 eye being assisted by the glass. The hands of the watch are stamped out 

 from thin sheets of steel. 



The various pieces of the watch movement, when entirely finished, are 

 collected in sets, and carried to the "putting-up" room, where from thirty- 

 five to forty hands are engaged in putting them together, adjusting and 

 preparing them for market, subjecting each to the most thorough tests, and 

 regulating it perfectly as is possible before its adjustment in the pocket of 

 the wearer. Here, as everywhere else in this establishment, the labor is 

 divided and sub-divided, so as to secure the greatest economy and highest 

 skill. The whole number of pieces in an old-fashioned English lever is 

 between eight and nine hundred, including the chain. In the American 

 movement there are only about a hundred and twenty distinct parts, each of 

 ivhich passes through the hands of from Jive to seventy-five operatives, in the 

 process of manufacture and adjustment! 



No one who examines the operations of this Company can doubt that a 

 revolution impends in the watch-manufacturing of the world; for, by the 

 American machinery, watch movements without cases are already produced 

 at just about one-half the cost of imported movements of similar grade, 

 while the former necessarily have the advantage of uniform reliability. A 

 poor time keeper, of machine make, should and doubtless will be as rare in 



