416 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



[July 



through these long galleries of seated and 

 patient artificers, was the exceeding deli- 

 cacy and minuteness of it all — the inevita- 

 ble machinery accomplishing, with such 

 powerful exactness, the almost invisible 

 wonders of transformation and construction, 

 and human aid seeming only needed to 

 supply the material and measure the work, 

 with movements of hand scarce perceptible. 

 The successions of minute instruments were 

 like ranges of little fairies, each weaving its 

 cobweb miracles, under a careful sentinel's 

 superintending eye. It is the novelty of 

 the Waltham Factory that this is so — ma- 

 chinery doing the hundred little dexteri- 

 ties which have hitherto been done only by 

 the variable hand of the workman. With 

 the machinery once regulated, therefore, 

 any number of watches of the same size 

 and pattern are made with invariable ex- 

 actness — all equally sure to keep time, 

 whereas, formerly, each watch was only a 

 probability by itself. 



The minuteness of very essential parts of 

 the watch astonishes the visitor. A small 

 heap of grains was shown to us, looking 

 like iron-filings, or grains of pepper from a 

 pepper-caster — appar<ently tlie mere dust of 

 the machine which turned them out — and 

 these, when examined with a microscope, 

 were seen to be perfect screws, each to be 

 driven to its place with a screw-driver. It 

 is one of the Waltham statistics which is 

 worth remembering, that " a single pound 

 of steel, costing but fifty cents, is thus 

 manufactured into one hundred thousand 

 screws which are worth eleven hundred 

 dollars." 



The poetic part of a watch, of course, is 

 what the truth in a woman's heart has been 

 so often compared to — the jewel upon which 

 all its movements are pivoted, and which 

 knows no wearing away or variation — and 

 to see these precious truth-jewels and their 

 adjustment was ane of my main points of 

 curiosity. The aid of the microscope was 

 again to be called in, to see these — the 

 precious stones, as we first saw them in the 

 glass phial, resembling grains of brilliant 

 sand. They are rubies, sapphires or chrys- 

 olites, inferior only to the diamond. in hard- 

 ness and to be drilled by the diamond's point 

 into pivoted reliances. The process is thus 

 described in the ajticle to which I am in- 

 debted for my statistics : 



The jewels are first drilled with a dia- 

 mond, and then opened out with diamond- 



dust, on a soft hair- like iron wire, their 

 perforations having certain microscopic dif- 

 ferences. In like manner the pivots of 

 steel that are to run in these jewels, without 

 wearing out in the least, must be exquis- 

 itely polished. By this operation their size 

 is slightly reduced. The jewels and pivots, 

 after being thus finished, are classified by 

 means of a gauge, so delicately graduated as 

 to detect a difference of the ten thousandth 

 part of an inch I the jewels are classified 

 by means of the pivots, the jewels and 

 pivots of the same number fitting each 

 other exactly. The sizes of the several 

 pivots and jewels in each watch are care- 

 fully recorded under its number, so that if 

 any one of either should fail in any part of 

 the world, by sending the number of the 

 watch to W^altham, the part desired may 

 be readily and cheaply replaced with un- 

 erring certainty.^' 



Of this, and all the other operations, too 

 minute for detailed description — the first 

 cutting of the stamps and dies from sheets 

 of brass, hardened and forming the barrels 

 and chambers, coiling and fastening the 

 main springs, gearing wheels and cutting 

 their teeth, shaping of pinions and axles, 

 cutting of escape-wheels, burning and 

 marking the porcelain dials, and final put- 

 ting together and adjusting of the various 

 parts — the superintendent, Mr. Denison, 

 discoursed to us most interestingly. I could 

 not but think, as I listened to this philoso- 

 pher of mechanic art, telling us these beau- 

 tiful secrets with his concentrativeness of 

 voice and eye, and his brief expressive lan- 

 guage, how much better it was than the 

 " seeing of a play," or the reading of a 

 novel. My two hours, of following him 

 and listening to his discourse with illus- 

 trations" were like the passing of a dream. 



■X- -X- * * * -!f 



N. P. W. 



Cure for Founder. — A speedy, safe, 

 and certain remedy for founder in the feet 

 of horses, is contributed to the Cotton 

 Planter, by a writer who testifies to its 

 value. He says : " Clean out the frog of 

 the foot ; let it be well cleansed by scra- 

 ping off all the dirt. Raise the foot so as 

 to be level — pour spirits of turpentine, a suf- 

 ficient quantity, so as not to run over the 

 hoof; then set the turpentine on fire, and 

 let it be entirely consumed." 



