ib2 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VERY. 



great and sufficient degree of exactness. In consequence ot 

 this certificate, the machine, at the recommendation of Sir 

 Charles Wager, was put on board a man-of-war in 1736, and 

 carried, with Mr. Harrison, to Lisbon and back again, when its 

 accuracy was such, that the Commissioners of the Board ot 

 Longitude gave him ;^5oo, and recommended him to proceed. 

 He made two others afterwards, each of which was an improve- 

 ment on the preceding, and he now thought he had reached 

 the ne plus ultra of his attempts; but in an endeavour to improve 

 pocket watches, he found the principles he applied to surpass 

 his expectations so much as to encourage him to make his 

 fourth time-keeper, which was in the form of a pocket-watch, 

 about sixteen inches in diameter, and was finished in 1759. With 

 this time-keeper his son made two voyages, the one to Jamaica, 

 and the other to Barbadoes, in both which experiments it cor- 

 rected the longitude within the nearest limits required by the Act 

 of Parliament ; and the inventor, at different times, though not 

 without considerable trouble, received the promised reward of 

 ^20,000. 



GEORGE GRAHAM. 



George Graham, clock and watch maker, the most ingenious 

 artist of his time, was born at Horsgills, in the parish of Kirk- 

 linton in Cumberland, in the year 1675. 



In 1688 he came up to London, and was put apprentice to 

 a person in that profession ; but after being some time with his 

 master, he was received, purely on account of his merit, into 

 the family of the celebrated Mr. Tompion, who treated him 

 with a kind of paternal affection as long as he lived. 



That Mr. Graham was, without competition, the most emi- 

 nent of his profession, is but a small part of his character. \\ e 



