I860.] 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTEH! 



415 



praise, and thanksgiving and love — whose 

 sweet melodious voices come wafted like in- 

 cense to us upon the summer zephyrs, and, 

 floating onward and upw^ard tlirough the 

 grund old woods, are caught and re-echoed 

 with new power and new beauty, and varying 

 tones, by myriad tuneful choristers, until the 

 air seems filled with the very essence of har- 

 mony, and the embowered branches of the 

 ■overspreading trees are converted into a 

 grand orchestral temple. 



We love little birds. We delight, when 

 suffering, and care, and sorrow have left their 

 impress upon our mind, or some dark shadow 

 of Evil or Spirit of Grloom has crossed the 

 brightest path of life, dimningour faculties, 

 destroying our perception of enjoyment, and 

 filling our very soul w^ith the impress of 

 Melancholy, to btroU into the woods, leaving 

 the artificial world behind us, turning our 

 backs upon our fellow-men, and shutting 

 ourselves up in a close communion with the 

 mysteries, and wonders, and beauties of Na- 

 ture. 



t ro7n the Home Journal. 



K". P. Willis' Visit to the Watch Factory 

 of the American Watch Company. 



* * >K * * 



Novelties in mechanism having always 

 been most interesting to me — seeming as it 

 were, supernatural and sudden apparitions 

 of things hitherto deemed impossible — I ac- 

 cepted very gladly an invitation to go where 

 I might see watches made by machinery. 

 How a watch should be made at all, is mys- 

 tery enough but that this ultimatum of 

 human ingenuity in hand-labour should be 

 reduced to mechanism, so that a hundred 

 watches can be made with the thought and 

 labour hitherto expended upon one, was a 

 marvel worth making sure of having seen 

 on this planet — being very likely to be "a 

 dropped stitch'' (like an antediluvian lost 

 art) in a world to come. If asked, there- 

 fore, at some scientific party in the Even- 

 ing Star (our next planet, the poets tell 

 us,) whether I have been to Waltham, I 

 am happy to have it to say that I visited 

 the Watch Factory, there, in one of the 

 last years of my previous existence. 1 may 

 add for a side ear (a fact about which there 

 is likely to be a sidereal curiosity, I think,) 

 tliat Governor Banks comes from the same 

 place. 



From Boston to Wiiltham, by railroad, is 



but the taking of a seat for a few minutes ; 

 and our guide, Mr. Bobbins (one of the 

 Company of Proprietors, to whose courage- 

 ous faith and persevering make-w^ork-ative- 

 ness, much of the success of the enterprise 

 is at.tributed,) soon opened the door for us 

 at the shop of the Time-smiths. Three of 

 our party were brother artificers, Mr. Stuart, 

 Mr.- Tilton, and myself, being " manufac- 

 turers of public opinion," and the fourth 

 was a lady of an unsympathetic profession, 

 Miss Booth, the lady-historian of the City 

 of New York." To the w^orth-while-ative- 

 ness of so intelligent a group of compan- 

 ions, I owed the obliging particularity with 

 which the riddles of mechanism were un- 

 ravelled to us. 



It is a curious necessity of a watch fac- 

 tory that it should form a part of a beauti- 

 ful landscape — a secluded place, a moist 

 soil, or the bank of a river, being requisite 

 to its operations. The original site of the 

 factory at Boxbury, was abandoned, because 

 the light and dusty character of the soil 

 and the degree to which the atmosphere 

 was charged with dust by the winds and 

 the industrial movements of the neighbour- 

 hood, interfered with, the nicety of the 

 wwk. Hence was chosen the present beau- 

 tiful hillside on a bend of the Charles river, 

 where the hundred or two of male and fe- 

 male operatives, as they sit at their benches, 

 regulating the different movements of the 

 machinery, can look out of the widows be- 

 fore them, upon bits of river scenery that 

 would enchant an artist. 



It is another poetic peculiarity of watch- 

 making, at Waltham, at least, that the 

 more delicate fingering of woman is found 

 to work best at it. Of the large number 

 of persons employed in the factory, more 

 than half, if I observed rightly, were of 

 the sisterhood left idle by the sewing ma- 

 chine — a happy compensatiLU of Provi- 

 dence ! Gradually, in this way, probably, 

 the in-door employment of all trades and 

 vocations that do not require masculine 

 strength, will be given over to woman. 



The Watch Factory is of brick, two sto- 

 ries in height, and enclosing a quadrangu- 

 lar court, and, along the closely-placed 

 inner and outer windows, stand the work- 

 benches at which are seated the successions 

 of operatives — each of the one hundred and 

 twenty parts of the watch requiring sepa- 

 rate manufacture, and adjustment. What 

 impressed me particularly, as I walked 



