THE ACCURATE MEASUREMENT OF TIME. 667 



The second class of escapements which we shall find exampled in 

 the waste-box is called the cylinder escapement, which still continues 

 to be used in some of the cheaper Swiss movements in boys' watches, 

 and such as the ladies wear suspended from the belt. It is the most 

 compact escapement which has ever been made, and is emjDloyed in 

 such very small specimens of the watch kind as are made to be set in 

 the head of a pencil, a shirt-stud, etc. It is by far the most reliable 

 escapement except the lever. Its principle is that the cylinder of the 

 balance-wheel is so cut that each tooth of the scape-wheel must force 

 it partly round to get past it. While it is making this turn, the next 

 tooth of the scape-wheel is caught upon the blank side of the cyl- 

 inder, and held until the recoil of the hair-spring brings the balance 

 back. 



Here and there a specimen is to be found of the old " duplex " 

 escapement to which the modern " Waterbury " is allied. It is so rare 

 as hardly to need our consideration. It is a good escapement when in 

 order, but is rather liable to get out of order. 



A third form of escapement, and the one now in use almost uni- 

 versally, is the detached lever. There are patent levers, straight-line 

 levers, and various other levers, but they are all detached levers, for 

 the reason that there is one point, in the course of each swing of the 

 balance, when the lever is entirely free or detached from the balance- 

 wheel, and so stands until the return-swing unlocks it. It is difiicult 

 to conceive of anything that would be an improvement ujaon this, and 

 seemingly no improvement is needed. 



Before we pass from the consideration of the escapement to that 

 of the balance itself, a remark should be made as to the relative 

 advantages of different rates of escapement. It is found that up to a 

 certain point what is called the quickness of the train, or, in plain Eng- 

 lish, the rapidity with which a watch beats, makes a difference with its 

 qualities as a time-keeper. This seems to be owing to the fact that 

 where a watch beats more slowly it is more apt to lose an occasional 

 beat through the jar and tossing about in the pocket. The Swiss manu- 

 facturers took the lead, and have for forty years or more made quick- 

 train watches, beating five times to the second, or eighteen thousand 

 times to the hour. The English watches commonly beat four times to 

 the second, or fourteen thousand four hundred to the hour. American 

 watches are made with the quick train of the Swiss, but more com- 

 monly with a beat intermediate between the two extremes. It is curi- 

 ous that the English, who have given so much money and thought in 

 the past to the manufacture of time-pieces, do not to-day make a good 

 watch nor a good common clock. Their adherence to the slow train is 

 one of the reasons of their failure in watches, and their retention of the 

 fusee is another. So great has been the decline in the English trade in 

 watches and clocks, that a number of their experts in that line recently 

 recommended petitioning the Government to cause an ofiicial investiga- 



