164 



• KNOWLEDGE •» 



[March 16, 188a 



CLOCKS AND WATCHES.* 

 Bv Richard A. Proctor, 



EVERYONE ought to know something about clocks and 

 ■watches, but especially about clocks. There is ex- 

 cellent exercise as well for tlie moral as the mental 

 qualities in taking to pieces, cleaning, and putting together 

 again, a good old English clock. You make mistakes the 

 tirst two or three times, of course, and you IJnd all sorts of 

 unexpected difficulties, especially with the escapement. 

 Y''our first mistakes are, of course, rather bad ones. 

 Perhaps at the beginning you omit to check the train 

 before freeing the pallets from the escapement wheel, and 

 the spring drives the wheels round with a whirr at 

 mischievous speed ; or, after cleaning the works and 

 putting them together successfully, you perhaps lubricate 

 them with linseed oil (an experience of our boyhood), and 

 get a very cloggy clock indeed. Or something goes wrong 

 with the hand-carrying wheels ; or the escapement wheel 

 obstinately refuses to work nicely on the pallets. If it 

 is a striking clock, you are still more apt to make 

 mistakes, whether it is on the rack-and-snail or striking- 

 plate system. But font vient enjiii d qui si^ait ailendre. 

 The whole working system of the clock is, before long, 

 mastered, and a very pretty mechanism it is found to be. 

 I am almost disposed to think that the average boy, even 

 if he belong to the unlucky class of those who have no 

 particular business to do in later life, gains more by mas- 

 tering a clever piece of mechanism than by learning the 

 correct rendering of a Latin ode : though I wish no more to 

 run down Latin lore (among the pleasantest studies we 

 have) than to advance the study of machinery as the only 

 fit pursuit for boys and men. Only I would have every- 

 one who possesses a clock or watch to know something of 

 its ingenious mechanism. 



Sir Edmund Beckett's "Rudimentary Treatise on Clocks 

 and Watches," though really intended for those who take 

 a more special interest in horology than most of us have 

 time to cultivate, will be found full of interesting reading 

 by thousands who would probably make a rare mess of 

 even a Dutch Wag o' the Wall, if they tried to clean or 

 mend one. It teaches the principles of horology which 

 everyone should understand, and gives so much practical 

 information about clockmaking as is wanted by clockmakers 

 and amateurs wishing to make or superintend clocks of 

 superior character. The book should be widely read by 

 clock-sellers. Many who sell the commoner sort of clocks, 

 often know much less than they ought to know even about 

 such clocks as they deal in. But the ignorance which for- 

 merly prevailed among those who claimed to be clock- 

 makers, can only be rightly estimated by a study of such a 

 work as this, from which we learn what can be done in the 

 way of exact time-measurement, and how little some of the 

 clockmakers of less than half a century ago knew about 

 the recjuirements for such success as has since been 

 achieved. 



The treatise is so widely known (this is practically the 

 ninth edition, though nominally the seventh, and each edition 

 contained 3,000 copies), that it need only be noted of the 

 present edition that it contains more new matter and 

 alterations than any since the fourth. 



Like everything Sir Edmund Beckett has ever written, 

 this work is full of interest and full of life and character. 



* " A Itudimentary Treatise on Clocks and Watches and Bells." 

 By Sir Edmnnd Beckett, Bart., author of " Astronomy Without 

 Mathematics." Seventh edition. Crosby, Lockwood, &, Co., Loudon. 



One can hardly read a single page without recognising thf- 

 personality of the writer. 



The attack on the metric system (pp. \0, 41) is a finf 

 example of Sir Edmund's style : " Doctrinaires may cran> 

 penny-school girls with French metre.?, and centimetres, 

 and kilograms ; but our yard grew and will remain as the 

 natural standard of length until the stature of the human 

 race alters. . . . Y'et there are people who want to force 

 on all the world the absurd, inconvenient, and useless 

 metre, invented by a nation whose language is declining 

 all over the world ; while the English language, with that 

 standard of measures which every man carries in his arms, 

 his legs, and in his head, is spreading over all the world, 

 so that it will soon be the only universal language to be 

 found everywhere, if it is not so already." Every sentence 

 tells like a well-weighted sledge-hammer swayed by a strong 

 arm. 



Illustrations of stupidity, such as Herbert Spencer has 

 tellingly used, are here to be found in abundance. Sir 

 Edmund mentions a specification for a public clock in- 

 cluding this remarkable stipulation, — the pendulum 

 "must vibrate two seconds, but be as long as the room 

 admits of." The same specification .stipulated for a 

 dead escapement — as completely out of date for superior 

 clocks as De Tick's balance-wheel escapement. A depu- 

 tation from a considerable town, negotiating in London 

 for a firstrrate town-hall clock, engaged to pay a swindling 

 firm more than would have paid for the best possible clock, 

 for one warranted to keep time within five minutes a week, 

 where five seconds would only have been a fair variation. 



Sir Edmund Beckett calls attention to the absurd way 

 in which the figures on clock-dials are made, pointing out 

 that, in reality, the Roman numerals are not wanted at 

 all, but simply clear marks dividing the dial into twelve 

 parts. I have seen clock faces so cleverly arranged with a 

 series of radiating streaks, of the same colour and shape as 

 the body of the hands, that, though I can read a watch 

 face at the farther end of a long room, I had to get close 

 to the clock (which was on the mantelpiece), and to peer 

 hard at, it before I could distinguish the hands and learn, 

 the time. 



The whole story of the Westminster Clock and 

 Bell should be studied by those who wish to know 

 of what blunders and of what negligence officialism 

 is capable, blunders and negligence very costly in this 

 case to the nation, — for which the officials after 

 their nature (which is simply average human nature 

 put in a position of trust for which it is unfit), cared 

 nothing, as the nation and not they would have to- 

 pay. Luckily, the blundering selfishness of officialisnv 

 ended by giving Sir Edmund Beckett legal control where 

 he had only been brought into the business to save an 

 official from trouble ; and as he was really interested in 

 getting a good clock made, whereas the officials did not 

 care two straws whether the clock was good or bad, he 

 naturally was a thorn in their side. Mr. W. Cowper 

 Temple, who had been made First Commissioner of Works- 

 by his stepfather. Lord Palmerston, was exuberantly 

 joyful when the man to whom the nation really owes 

 the clock had ceased to have control over it It was- 

 handed over to Sir George Airy, who amused himself by 

 devising a new arrangement to replace the great check- 

 spring of the striking part : a smash naturally resulted 

 (since Airy's knowledge of large clocks was purely theo- 

 retical) ; " and then the old spring was quietly replaced, 

 and is there now, and there have been no more such ex- 

 periments." The story of the bells is equally instructive; 

 As to expense, the bells cost less than .£6,000, and the 

 clock, with the hands originally provided, cost £4,.080, or- 



