408 TRANSACTIONS OP THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



tions of all works of foreign manufacture, as not to invalidate tlie rule of 

 positive unity. The impossibility of important deviations, indeed, becomes 

 evident so soon as the processes of manufacture are explained. This fact 

 being established, as it has been with the American company, from the 

 very birth of their enterprise, thei-e needs no serious argument to prove the 

 general superiority of their watches. The only question that could arise 

 would be in respect of particular possibilities. In certain instances, there 

 might be single instruments of fox-eign production finished with an accura- 

 cy beyond even the regular workings of machinery. But to meet this, the 

 American company have devoted one department of their factory to the 

 construction of a much more elaborate article than their usual average. 

 There the advantages of strict identity in component parts are combined 

 with those of the most dexterous workmanship. The parts are still pro- 

 duced by machinery, but they are adjusted by workmen of peculiar skill, 

 who through experience or natural cleverness have the faculty of detecting 

 the minuter qualities essential to perfect harmony and evenness in move- 

 ment. Delicate shades of excellence in the jewels, or other materials used, 

 are thus discovered and taken advantage of; and the watch passes through 

 sympathetic hands, which assort and regulate its details with more parti- 

 cular consideration of their bearing toward each other than is deemed 

 necessary in the ordinary instrument. In this way, watches of absolute 

 equality with the finest results of European manufacture, are, in such 

 quantities as demanded, regularly produced. 



An important question naturally is that of the relative costliness of 

 European and American watches. It appears that the advantage of cheap- 

 ness is also with us. The difference in prices is not excessive, but is suf- 

 ficient to be an object to any purchaser. The virtue of superior durability, 

 however, is one which ought to be well considered in this regard. Ameri- 

 can instruments will outlast all others. It has been estimated that we 

 pay Europe $5,000,000 a year for watches, and a like sum for keeping them 

 in order. At our own door watches are manufactured at a lower price, of 

 better quality, less likely to become disordered, and so arranged that in 

 case of injury by violence the injury may cheaply and expeditiously be re- 

 paired. We not only have to pay, in importing watches, for the needless 

 manual labor which is bestowed upon them, but endless tribute to those 

 through whose hands they pass. 



The mamifactory itself is situated at Waltham, a few miles distant from 

 Boston. It stands upon the border of the river Charles, and in the midst 

 of a fresh and open meadow land. Within its walls the spindles and 

 wheels are whirring, not with unseemly clangor, but with " a summer 

 sound as of doves in quiet neighborhoods," Deft hands are moving, too, 

 with swift and dainty celerity. There is nothing rude or cyclopean in the 

 forging of these frail mysteries of machinery. The triumphs here are those 

 of subtlety and cunning, not of force. To the unpracticed observation, the 

 scattered elements seem to silently aggregate themselves into organisms. 

 The watches are built like that Temple in the rearing of which no sound 

 of hammer or of ax was heard. Little trays containing the myriad frag- 

 ments pass from hand to hand, each successive transfer subtracting some- 

 thing from the dainty chaos, and adding something to the dainty order in 



