WATCHES. 
43 
Watches . 
The keyless half-chronometer is the most suitable watch for a traveller 
in wild countries. (The half-chronometer watch is an English lever 
watch, with compensation balance, and a carefully-tempered balance 
spring.) 
The ordinary pocket chronometer is not calculated to stand the 
rough usage to which most travellers’ watches are subjected. The 
objections to it are: (1) The extreme delicacy of the escapement 
and liability to injury from rust or accident. (2) Its great liability 
to stoppage from various causes, such as a sudden jerk when riding 
or travelling over a rough country; even if in the act of winding it 
the holder should inadvertently give a circular motion to his hand in a 
direction opposite to that in which the balance-wheel is moving at 
the same instant, it may stop. (When a chronometer is once stopped it 
will not start again unless a circular motion be given to it.) (3) The 
impossibility of its repair when injured, except by high-skilled work¬ 
men, and when very slightly injured, the consequent great disturbance 
and irregularity in its rate. 
Under favourable circumstances, and in skilled hands, pocket chrono¬ 
meters have done good service, but this is exceptional. The minimum 
price of a good pocket chronometer, in a silver case, is 45?. 
Half-chronometers are not liable to stop from the before-mentioned 
causes, and they are more easily repaired. They may be carried in the 
pocket under conditions of rough usage, short of actual violence, and 
under ordinary circumstances their performances are frequently but 
little inferior to those of a chronometer at rest. 
Of late years, great improvements have been made in the manu¬ 
facture of the lever escapement, compensation balances, and the balance 
springs, upon which the ability of a watch to keep a steady rate in a 
great measure depends. The keyless mechanism has also been perfected, 
and it is not necessary to open the case of a keyless watch in order to 
wind it; thus the works receive increased security from dust and damp, 
the two great enemies of all time-pieces. 
The following is the description of such a watch as would be best 
suited to a traveller. The watch should be an 18-size half-chronometer; 
