( 148 ) 
Art. XXIV. — Account of a Free Escapements with considerable 
reduction of Friction. By Urbain Jurgensen, Chronome- 
ter-maker to the Danish Navy, and Member of the Royal 
Society of Sciences at Copenhagen 
The Utility of exact chronometers for navigation and geo- 
graphy, led the British and French Governments to offer such 
encouragement to eminent artists, as might repay them for the 
time spent in the acquisition of the knowledge, both theoretical 
and practical, which was necessary to the advancement of an 
art so difficult and intricate ; and they thus attained such an 
astonishing degree of precision, that often in successive days the 
error in the rate of going does not exceed fractions of seconds, 
or, what is the same thing, not the xoo^^oo hours. 
It is principally in England that the art of making exact 
time-keepers has been successful and general •f*. The numerous 
works of Emery, Arnold, Earnshaw, Pennington, Frodsham, 
Parkinson, &c. afford proofs of this remark. France is also 
distinguished by the excellence of the works of Breguet, who 
will long be admired by those capable of appreciating the know- 
ledge he displays, the novelty of the means he employs, and 
the fertility of his invention, in overcoming the difficulties of so 
intricate a subject. 
The great exactness of chronometers depends on the execu- 
tion, as well as on the principles upon which they are constructed. 
A great equality in the moving power, uniformity in the wheel- 
work, which conveys the power to the escapement, diminution of 
friction, and the application of means to render the latter as equa^ 
ble as possible, and freedom in the vibrations of the balance, 
are qualities indispensable to a good chronometer ; but still 
there are others essentially necessary to its perfection, namely, 
the true relation between the movement of the regulator and 
? Translated and abridged from Shumacher’s Astronomische Nachrichten^ 
No. X. p. 155. March 1822. 
*|* It is agreeable to observe, that the superior pretensions of British artists, in 
the construction of chronometers, which were so strongly and ably stated in the 
Edinburgh Review for October 1819, vol. xxxii. p. 372. are asserted under a still 
more formidable contrast by a Danish artist, whose judgment must be considered 
as at least disinterested. 
