and there appears to be little if any parallel between the two 

 groups. Basically, the use of wood for making some mathe- 

 matical instruments in New England resulted from the native 

 familiarity with this material, which was also employed to a con- 

 siderable degree for the construction of domestic and agricultural 

 implements, and from the fact that many of the early clockmakers 

 had been trained as or by cabinet makers, carpenters, and even 

 dish turners. Random examples of a few of the more prominent 

 clockmakers are Joseph Hopkins, a wood turner; Chauncey 

 Jerome, who had been apprenticed to a wood turner; and Silas 

 Hoadley, who had worked with a cabinet maker. 



Perhaps a basis for the prevalence of wood in these trades is to 

 be found in the lines from a familiar poem : 



The Yankee boy, before he's sent to school, 

 Knows well the mystery of that magic tool, 

 The Pocket knife." 



But, from the technical point of view, it should be noted that those 

 craftsmen who produced clocks and instruments and did not have 

 their own brass foundries probably found that a good piece of 

 straight-grained hardwood was as stable for holding its dimen- 

 sions with the grain as a piece of brass. Shrinkage was at right 

 angles to the grain; hence, for fixed linear stability wood was as 

 good as brass. For rigidity per unit weight, wood was better 

 than brass; and for availability and ease of working, wood was 

 superior to brass. 



It has often been ventured that wooden clocks were first pro- 

 duced in Connecticut, because of the scarcity of brass for this 

 purpose during the years between the beginning of the Revolution 

 to the end of the War of 1812. The claim is made that brass was 

 not being produced in the Colonies and that it was imported ex- 

 clusively from England during this period. Certainly, the whole- 

 sale price index of metal and metal products shows a steady in- 

 crease during this period, and a considerable jump during the 

 period of the War of 1812, making brass an extremely expensive 

 material. This may explain why the makers of clocks and in- 

 struments who made and sold brass clocks and instruments were 

 producing the same products at the same time in wood which, 

 as we have seen, was both plentiful and a satisfactory substitute. 



It can be surmised, therefore, that surveying instruments, as 

 well as instruments for other purposes, were produced in both brass 



^^ John Pierpont, "Whittling, A Yankee Portrait." 



68 



