B7& Effect of Magnetism on Time-pieces, 
produced where the best workmen have been employed* 
no expense spared by the maker* and the above-mention- 
ed improvements applied with the utmost care and atten- 
tion ; and yet the rate of going of the watch has been 
more irregular than in some ordinary watches. When 
such a circumstance occurs* it is extremely unpleasant : 
the purchaser not understanding the difficulties which 
the maker has to encounter* thinks himself ill used* and 
the latter suffers at the same time in his reputation as an 
artist* and in his character as a man; and when the 
watches happen to have been made for nautical purposes* 
or for exportation* the whole community* in some mea- 
sure* become sufferers. 
The intention of the present paper is to point out a de- 
fect in the construction of time-pieces of every descrip- 
tion in which balances are used* and at the same time a 
source of error in their performance* which has been hi- 
therto little if at all suspected* but which* where it oc- 
curs* completely defeats all the ends intended to be an- 
swered by the application of the above-mentioned inge- 
nious contrivances : and that it does occur very frequent- 
ly* will be made sufficiently obvious by a simple detail of 
facts supported by actual experiments. 
That the balances of watches* when manufactured of 
steel* as they mostly are* might be in a small degree mag- 
netic* and consequently have some influence in disturbing 
their vibrations* has been suspected by some and denied 
by others : but that a circular body* such as a balance is* 
should possess polarity; that a particular point in it 
should have so strong a tendency to the north* and an op- 
posite point an equal tendency to the south* as to be suf- 
ficient materially to alter the rate of going of the machine 
when put in different positions* has never* I believe* been 
even suspected. If it had* the use of steel balances 
would have been laid aside long ago* particularly where 
