IV 
APPENDIX. 
and Frodsham determined on sending three chronometers on trial on the 
present occasion; accordingly their Nos. 253 and 254 were delivered to 
Captain Sabine in the beginning of April, 1819, and No. 259 a few days 
before the expedition sailed, being intrusted jointly to Captain Parry’s care 
and his. No. 286, an eight-day chronometer of Messrs. Finer and Nowland, 
was also placed in Captain Sabine’s charge, on a similar adventure. Arnold’s 
No. 25, and 523, (the latter a pocket chronometer,) being both the property 
of Henry Browne, Esq. F.R.S., were with Captain Sabine in this as in the 
preceding voyage. These seven, the property of individuals, were all on 
board the Hecla, making her total complement nine box, and two pocket 
chronometers. 
The box chronometers (with the exception of 286, for the first five weeks) 
were suspended from the beams of the deck in the after-cabin, in canvass 
cots lined with green baize. Steel springs had been furnished by 
Messrs. Parkinson and Frodsham, to be attached, instead of beckets, to the 
eyes of the cot-clews, with a view to take off the effect of jars which the 
ship might receive when navigating amongst ice ; but the springs giving way 
in one or two instances, (fortunately, however, without injurious consequences,) 
and the suspension by the eyes of the clews, or by very short beckets 
appearing in other respects preferable, the springs were removed. The 
motion of some of the larger chronometers was checked by pulleys attached to 
the sides of their cots. 
An apparatus for suspending 286 had accompanied it from the makers, 
devised by Mr. Jennings, patentee of the insulating compasses, and approved 
by Messrs. Finer and Nowland. It consisted of a copper cylinder upwards 
of a foot in length, and an inch and a half diameter, closed at the bottom 
and surmounted by a basin of sufficient capacity to receive the chronometer 
box. The basin was suspended in gimbals by lanyards from the deck, and a 
small quantity of mercury poured into the copper cylinder. To the bottom 
of the chronometer box was affixed a cylindrical wooden leg of rather less 
diameter than the copper tube, into which it entered, resting on the mercury, 
and bearing the weight of the chronometer. In the first few days after the 
ships had sailed, it was remarked that the motion, by this mode of 
suspension, was more lively than by the cots, and that in heavy rolls the 
chronometer box was brought in contact with the framework containing the 
gimbals ; this latter inconvenience might have been remedied by pouring 
more mercury into the cylinder, but at the expense of increasing the motion 
