The H. J. Heinz Collection of Watches. 5 



ual "stealing away of water." Time was measured by the amount 

 of water discharged from a vessel through a small aperture, the quant- 

 ity discharged in a given unit of time being first determined. In the 

 Athenian courts it was customary to limit the length of arguments 

 by this device; yEschines (389-314 B. C.) tells us that the "first water" 

 was allowed to the accuser, the "second" to the accused, and the 

 "third" to the judges. Many modifications of this instrument were 

 employed, and the familiar hour-glass, also known to the Asiatics long 

 before the time of Christ, was practically the same instrument, in 

 which sand was substituted for water. 



All of these earlier methods for measuring time were woefully inac- 

 curate, so that the invention of the clock was a great step in advance. 

 The name of the inventor and the date of the invention of this val- 

 uable instrument are both lost in the mists of mediaeval times. In 

 the year 1120 A. D. in the rules of the Monastery of Citeaux, France, 

 the sacristan is charged with the duty of "adjusting the clock, so that 

 it may strike and awaken the monks for matins." In the latter part 

 of the same rules it is ordered "to prolong their reading until the clock 

 sounds."^ The bell was an important part of these early time- 

 keepers. The word "clock" itself is most probably derived from the 

 Celtic word for a hell, and in the Celtic, Scandinavian, and German 

 tongues still preserves its original meaning (German, glocke; Danish, 

 klokke; Gaelic, clog; Welsh, clock). 



Peter Henlein or Hele of Nuremberg, a noted clock-maker, seems 

 to hold the undisputed honor of inventing the watch. He was born 

 in 1480 and died in 1542. His ingenuity in substituting a spring to 

 take the place of the ponderous weights of the clock made the watch, 

 or portable clock, a possibility. This first spring was simply a straight 

 band about a pillar. In the year 1658 Hooke applied a spiral spring 

 to the balance-wheel of the watch in the same year that Huyghens 

 first applied the pendulum to the clock. It does not seem necessary 

 to attempt a history of the mechanical improvements which followed, 

 as many technical works, fully illustrated, have been published. It 

 was some time, however, before the mechanical improvements kept 

 pace with the perfection which was lavished upon the ornamentation 

 of the case. 



The bell was retained as an essential feature of these early time- 



1 See Dom. Augustin Calmet, " Commentaire litteral sur la regie de Saint Benolt," 

 Vol. I, pp. 279-280. 



