WATAUGA ASSOCIATION 



6211 



WATCH 



members. Wasps are useful in decreasing the 

 number of flies and smaller insects. 



Consult Morley's Waapa and Their Ways; Dun- 

 can's Dees, Wasps and Ants. 



WATAUGA, wahtaw'ga, ASSOCIATION, a 

 party of settlers west of the Alleghany Moun- 

 tains, who drew up the first written constitu- 

 tion adopted in America. When in 1768 the 

 Six Nations by treaty surrendered all claim to 

 the lands lying between the Ohio and the Ten- 

 nessee rivers, settlers from Virginia and Penn- 

 .-ylvania crossed into the territory and in 1769 

 established a colony on the shore of the Wa- 

 tauga River. Three years later the Watauga 

 Association was formed, and Articles were 

 drawn up, providing for an executive council 

 of five, a legislative body of thirteen, a sheriff 

 and an attorney. None who had not signed the 

 Articles, however, was held to be under their 

 jurisdiction, and desperadoes from the neigh- 

 boring states, especially Virginia and North 

 Carolina, flocked to the settlement. In 1776 

 the community, under the name of Washing- 

 ton District, was permitted to send representa- 

 tives to the assembly of North Carolina, and 

 eventually it became a part of the state of 

 Tennessee. 



WATCH, a portable instrument for measur- 

 ing time, invented about the year 1500 by Peter 

 Hele, a clock maker of Nuremberg, Germany. 

 A watch fs const ructed on the same general 

 principles as a clock. As the ordinary watch 

 is much smaller than a clock, its parts are 

 smaller and require much nicer adjustment. 

 The number of wheels and their arrangement 

 corresponds closely in clocks and watches, but 

 is one important difference in the mecha- 

 nism a watch is regulated by a hairspring and 

 balance wheel, whereas a clock is regulated by 

 a pendulum. Most men carry their watches 

 in their pockets, but women usually wear them 

 in one of three other ways, either suspended 

 from the neck by a chain, pinned to the dress 

 or waist, or fastened to a bracelet around the 

 wrist. Bracelet or wrist watches have become 

 very popular; women in great numbers wear 

 thnii, soldiers prefer thc-m, because of con- 

 tinence, and a few men in civil life wear 

 them. 



As the first essential of a watch is porta- 



v that is, it must be small and must run 



correctly when being carried in any position 



arly clock maker who set out to make 



such a timepiece was confronted by two great 



difficult irs; first, all the parts had to be made 



by hand; second, a new motive power had to 



be found, for a weight could only be used in a 

 clock, which always stood erect. The first dif- 

 ficulty was soon overcome by training skilled 

 watch makers, and the second by the invention 

 of the mainspring, about the year 1500. At 

 first a straight spring was used, but this soon 

 gave way to a coiled spring. The earliest 

 watches bore little resemblance to those now 

 manufactured; peculiarity of any kind seems 

 to have been considered more desirable than 

 accuracy in keeping time. These early watches 

 were really expensive toys. 



In the course of years, however, the practical 

 value of these toys led to many improvements. 

 The earliest watches had only the hour hands; 

 the minute hand was an easy step forward. 

 Enamel dials were first used about 1650, and a 

 few years later the hairspring was added to the 

 balance wheel. About 1700 it was discovered 

 that garnet, ruby and other precious stones, 

 though costly, made the best pivot bearings. 

 All high-grade watches now have "jeweled 

 movements." The last great improvement was 

 the invention of automatic machinery for mak- 

 ing the parts of a watch. Machinery made pos- 

 sible the standardizing of watch manufacture, 

 and has made watch repairing, though still 

 delicate work, a comparatively simple task, be- 

 cause all the parts of a machine-made watch 

 can be readily duplicated. 



Many of these early watches are still in ex- 

 istence, but few of them are in use. The liiV 

 of a watch is almost impossible to estimate. 

 With careful use and occasional cleaning and 

 repairs, a medium-priced watch will outlive any 

 man and will frequently be an heirloom for hw 

 children and their children. Most old watches 

 now in existence are clumsy in appearance and 

 unreliable as timckeepr: i pared with a 



modern watch. So great, however, are the im- 

 provements which have resulted from the per- 

 fection of watch-makinn machinery, that a 

 good watch made in 1900 may reasonably be 

 expected to keep good time in 1950 or even 

 in 2000. Most \\-atrh makers guarantee their 

 watches for at least one year, and make repairs 

 without charge, if any are necessary within 

 that time. 



A watch consists of two parts, the case, and tin- 

 works. The case is usually of metal, gold, sil- 

 nr platinum being commonly used except 

 in the cheaper watches, whose cases are made 

 of nickel, gun metal or various alloys, 

 cases are often elaborately engraved, and ladies' 

 watches are frequently set with precious stones. 

 Many watches arc made with a hinged cover 



