PoLYTECnmc Association Proceedings. gQT 



going backwards and operating two pawls alternately. These 

 pawls were attached to opposite sides of a small wheel on an arbor, 

 thus getting up an oscillating motion. To this arbor he attached 

 either his motive-rod for a pendulum or handle for a striking ham- 

 mer, which he would sometimes make ten feet long. The escape- 

 ment in the clock at the fair, was one of his modifications of this 

 principle, and the strike had it in full. This striking gives a good 

 Dlid blow, but he never made one that would count twelve with- 

 out hesitating. His year clocks were a great curiosity. He w\as a 

 great genius, but he never made anything practical. His inge- 

 nuity seemed more like that of a child than of a well matured brain. 

 Men of genius, whether in art, literature, or mechanics, stamp their 

 productions with their own image, and any one at all accustomed 

 to Crane's works would recognize this, oven though it bear the 

 name of C. A. Stevens & Co. 



The simplest Remontoir I have met is at the store of Messrs. 

 Blunt & Nichols, Water street, and can be seen by any one who 

 will take the troulile to call. The train ends with a fly of two 

 fans outside the frame, the same as in any ordinary striking train. 

 On the opposite side of the third wheel is another pinion with twice 

 as many teeth as the fly pinion. The scape wheel arbor is on a line 

 with this and is connected to it by a fine coiled spring. It has the 

 common pin escapement. The scape wheel arbor runs through the 

 frame in a position that a small steel projection on each fly just 

 strikes its center. Transverse slots are cut in the end of this arbor 

 so that every, quarter turn brings a slot in position that allows the 

 point on the fly to pass through; make half a turn and the next fl}'" 

 rests on the arbor until a slot comes into position and allows it to 

 pass. Everything about it is simple and easily understood. In 

 driving the fly half a turn it winds the coiled spring one-quarter 

 turn, and this power is given off to the scape wheel arbor. I can 

 see no advantage in a Remontoir, except perhaps in a clock having 

 very large dials in an exposed situation where a surplus of power 

 might be needed in heavy weather, and even in that case, it must 

 be borne in mind that a half minute of repose during a freezing 

 sleet might prove fatal where a continuous motion would live 

 through. The first Remontoirs were made about the year 1600, 

 or fifty years before pendulums were used on clocks. In two 

 hundred years they were made with every conceivable modifica- 

 tion, rewinding from one to eight times in clocks, and in watches 

 and marine chronometers, all the way to three hundred- times a 



