PROCEEDINGS OF THE POLYTECHNIC ASSOCIATION. 415 



tone. Mr. F. C. Andrews, now with the American Clock Company, No. 3 

 Courtland street, was the first to attempt making them in this country. 



Although machinery has been brought to great perfection in making 

 clocks, still much has to be done by the hands, but even these become as it 

 were a part of the machinery, for boys and men work for years drilling 

 pinions, drilling collets, turning pivots, &c., and seldom change work. A 

 lad drills a thousand or more of these collets in an hour; another almost or 

 quite as many needle holes, while another turns from five to seven hundred 

 of staffs with collets and pivots in a day, getting forty cents a hundred. 

 Little girls drop in the needles and stamp them. Girls also paint the 

 dials. A lad puts together 160 to 200 in a day, and another, more experi- 

 enced, sets the escapement and lock work. Another gang of men finish or 

 put all the parts together; one takes a case and puts in the movements, 

 passes it to the next, who puts in the bell, the next one puts in the rod and 

 beat, the next puts on the dial and hands, the next hangs the sash, and so 

 on. The whole together getting two to three cents each clock. I have 

 helped three others finish in this manner 300 clocks in four hours. 



Clocks for the million has been the Yankees' motto. I cannot say that 

 they have aimed at perfection, or if they did, but that they shot wide of the 

 mark. Our friends across the water boast of clocks that run for years and 

 not varying a minute, and chronometers that make voyages to the Arctic 

 regions and come back not two seconds from their rate; but for some 

 unaccountable reason their watches, clocks or chronometers that get into 

 this benighted region, do not carry out those assertions. 



The Yankees have never troubled their brain any further about compen- 

 sating rods, than to make occasionally a wood one, and in my humble 

 opinion a rod made entirely of wood, without steel at top or bottom, would 

 be as correct as we would need. It is the cases that sell Yankee clocks, con- 

 sequently they make the movements to suit the cases, and not cases to suit 

 the movements. They make eight-day movements with three-inch rod, and 

 yet, with a heavy bob, they keep very good time. There is more or less of 

 the bugbear about gridiron pendulums, for about one-half of the massive, 

 ponderous things, especially in French clocks, have the centre rod running 

 directly through with the nut at the bottom, and have not a particle of 

 compensating power about them. 



One word as to balances. It is a well known principle that in every bal- 

 ance spring of sufficient length, a certain portion of it will be isochronal, 

 whether long or short. Now this is the point when found (and it can only 

 be found by experiment) that gives correct vibrations. If this portion bo 

 lessened the long vibrations will be quicker than the short ones, and if 

 increased beyond this point,^the short vibrations will be quicker than the 

 long ones. Now if this point is arrived at, why will not a watch with a 

 going barrel run as well as one with a fusee ? There seem to be two diffi- 

 culties in the way, one is that it has to be brought to true time, and doing 

 this by the common regulator destroys this equipoise. Chronometer makers 

 regulate by screws in the balance, by which this difficulty is overcome. 

 The other difficulty seems to be that the heat and cold throw it out of time 

 again ; this in turn is remedied by compensation and movable weights. 

 If it gains by heat the weights compensate too much and must be moved 



