ratchet wheel
Ratchet Wheel—A wheel with triangular teeth fixed on to an arbor to prevent the latter from turning backward. The fronts of the teeth are radial, the backs straight lines running from the tip of one tooth to the base of the next. In going-barrel, keyless watches the ratchet has epicycloidal teeth. By "the ratchet" in a watch, chronometer or clock with mainspring is meant the ratchet fastened to the barrel arbor to prevent the mainspring from slipping back when it is being wound.
Recoil—In recoil escapements the pallets not only stop the escape wheel but actually turn it backward a slight distance. This backward motion is called the recoil.
Regulator—1. A standard clock with compensated pendulum with which less accurate movements are compared. 2. The lever in a watch by which the curb-pins regulating the swing of the hairspring are shifted.
Remontoire—An arrangement in the upper part of the going train by which a weak spring is wound up or a small weight is lifted that gives impulse to the escape wheel at short intervals. Its use is to counteract the irregularities in impulse due to the coarse train, etc. They are delicate and complicated and now superseded by the Double Three-legged Gravity Escapement.
Repeater—A striking watch or clock which by the pulling of a string or the pressing of a button could be made to repeat the last hour and part hour, struck. In vogue during the 18th century. Credit for the invention was disputed by Daniel Quare and Edward Barlow. JamesIIgave the decision in favor of Quare whose mechanism was a trifle simpler.
Repousse—A kind of chasing in which the metal is punched or pressed from the back bringing the design into higher relief than by the usual method of indenting.
portable sun-dial
Ring-Dial—SeeSun-dial, Portable.
Richard, Daniel Jean—A Swiss watchmaker, born at La Sagne in 1665. At fifteen a watch having come into his hands, he constructed a similar one unaided. That was the first watch made in Neuchatel. After a time in Geneva he set up business in La Sagne, afterwards moving to Locle. He created the watch industry of Neuchatel and saw it grow to a neighborhood of five hundred workers. He died at Locle 1741. In 1888 a bronze statue was erected to him there.
Robbins, Royal E.—Born in Connecticut 1824. He was essentially one of the "fathers" of American watchmaking because it was through his financing and clever management that the first watch company finally succeeded in making a financial success.
Roller—The circular plate in a lever escapement, into which the ruby pin is set.
Roller-Jewel—Same as "impulse pin."
Roman Indiction—A period of fifteen years appointed by the Emperor Constantine 312 A. D. for the payment of certain taxes.
Rose Engine—A lathe in which the rotary movement of the mandrel is combined with a lateral, reciprocating movement of the tool rest; used for ornamenting the outside cases of watches with involved curved engraving.
Ruby Pin—The impulse pin in a lever escapement, made of a ruby.
Ruby Roller—The roller in a duplex escapement against which the teeth of the escape wheel are locked.
Run—In the lever escapement, the extent of the movement of the lever toward the banking pins after the "drop" on to the locking.
Sabinianus—Pope from 604 to 606. Said to have invented a clock in 612 A. D., but the clock he is supposed to have built was probably only another of many forms of clepsydrae, or water clocks.
Safety Pinion—A center pinion in a going-barrel watch which allows the recoil of the barrel if the mainspring breaks.
sand-glass
Sand-Glass—(Clepsammia)—A dumb-bell-shaped glass globe containing sand, and with a small aperture through which the sand flows in a certain fixed time. The most common form is the hour-glass but many others are in use as the three-minute glass for boiling eggs, the two-minute glass used by the British Parliament, etc. Dried and finely powdered eggshell sometimes used in place of sand. The principle is the same as that of the simplest form of clepsydra. SeeHour-Glass.
Sandoz and Trot—A firm which established the first watch factory in Switzerland in 1804. Previous to that time watchmaking had been a house industry.
Second—One-sixtieth of a minute: 1-3600 of a mean solar hour.
Secondary Compensation—Same as "auxiliary compensation." SeeAuxiliary.
Seconds Hand—The hand on the dial of a clock or watch which revolves once a minute. Sometimes small and set in a small circle of its own. Sometimes long and traverses the whole dial. SeeCenter-seconds and Sweep-seconds.
Seconds Pivot—The prolongation of the fourth wheel arbor to which the seconds hand of a watch is fixed.
Seconds, Split—Divided seconds—into quarters, or fifths; measured by a chronograph.
Shadow—A darkened space resulting from the interception of light by an opaque body.
Shagreen—Made from the tough skin that covers the crupper of a horse or ass. Rough seeds are trodden into the skin and then allowed to dry. The seeds are shaken out and the skin dyed green. Then the rough surface is rubbed down smooth leaving white spots on the green ground. Also made from the rough skin of sharks and dolphins. Formerly used a great deal for the outer cases of watches. SeePair Cases.
Sherwood, Napoleon Bonaparte—Born in 1823. About 1855 he entered the watchmaking business in the employ of the Waltham Watch Co. He revolutionized jeweling methods and invented among other things a "Counter-sinker," "End-shake tools," "Truing-up tools" and "Opener." In 1864 he organized the Newark Watch Company but within a few months severed his connection with it. He died in 1872.
Sidereal Time—The standard used by astronomers; measured by the diurnal rotation of the earth, which turns on its axis in 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.1 seconds. The sidereal day is therefore 3 minutes, 56 seconds shorter than the mean solar day. Mean time clocks can be regulated with greater facility by the stars than by the sun for the motion of the earth with regard to the fixed stars is uniform. Clocks all over the United States are so regulated from the Naval Observatory at Washington.
Side-Shake—Freedom of pivots to move sideways. SeeEnd-Shake.
Slow Train—A train whose balance vibrates 14,400 times an hour. Now never used in pocket watches because of susceptibilityto inequalities in the pull of the mainspring, jars, sudden movements, etc. Used, however, in marine chronometers.
Snail—A cam shaped like a snail, used generally for gradually lifting and suddenly discharging a lever, as in the striking mechanism of clocks.
Snailing—A method of ornamenting with circles and bars parts of a watch movement which it is not desirable to polish highly.
Solar Time—Time marked by the diurnal revolution of the earth with regard to the sun, of which the midday is the instant at which the sun appears at its greatest height above the horizon. This instant varies from twelve o'clock mean time because the earth also advances in its orbit and its meridians are not perpendicular to the ecliptic.
spandrels
Spandrels—The corners of a square face outside the dial of a clock. Formerly very beautifully decorated. The age of the clock can be told approximately from the form of ornamentation employed.
Split Seconds—A chronograph in which there are two center-seconds hands—one under the other—which can be stopped independently of one another.
Spring-Clocks—Clocks whose driving power is a coiled spring instead of a weight.
stackfreed
Stackfreed—The derivation of the word is obscure; it is possibly Persian. A device to counteract the difference in power of the mainspring at the different stages of its unwinding. Fixed to the mainspring arbor above the top plate is a pinion having eight leaves, which gears with a wheel having twenty-four teeth, which do not quite fill out the circumference of the wheel. Fastened to the wheel is a cam, concentric for about seven-eighths of its circumference and indented for the remainder. Into a groove in the concentric portion of the edge is pressed a roller which is pivoted at the free end of a strong curved spring. When the mainspring is fully wound the roller rests in the curved depression of the cam and the effort required to lift the roller up the incline absorbs some of the mainspring's power. On the other hand when the mainspring is nearly run down, the roller is descending an inclined plane and absorbs less of the power. Not an acceptable device and now rarely met with.
Stem-Winding—The ordinary method of winding keyless watches by means of a stem running through the pendant.
Stop Work—An arrangement for preventing the overwinding of a mainspring or a clock weight.
Stratton, N. P.—One of the early watchmakers connected with American manufacture. He was an apprentice of the Pitkin Bros., and was sent by the Waltham Company to England in 1852 to learn gilding and etching. He was made assistant superintendent of the Waltham Co. in 1857. He invented a mainspring barrel and a hair-spring stud which were later adopted by the Waltham Company.
Striking-Work—The part of a clock's mechanism devoted to striking. The chief forms areRack, andLocking-plate, or Count-wheel. See separate articles.
Striking-Work, Locking-Plate, or Count-Wheel—Used in turret clocks where there is no occasion for the repeating movement. This form of striking work does not allow of the repetition or omission of the striking of any hour without making the next one wrong.
Striking-Work—Rack—A form of striking work used largely in house clocks; the number of blows to be struck depends merely on the position of a wheel attached to the going part. In this form the striking of any horn may be omitted or repeated without deranging the following strikes.
Stud—1. A small piece of metal pierced to receive the outer or upper coil of a balance spring. 2. The holder of the fusee stop-work. 3. Any fixed holder used in a watch or clock, not otherwise named, is called a stud.
Style—The finger or gnomon on a sun-dial whose shadow, falling on the plate, indicates the time.
Sully, Henry—An English watchmaker of the early eighteenth century who lived most of his life in France. He presented the French Academy with a marine timekeeper superior to the timepieces of the period, and a memoir describing it. He died shortly afterward and advance in the art was delayed.
Sun-Dial—A device for telling time by the shadow of a style, cast by the sun, as thrown upon a disk or plate marked with the hour lines. Dials were named from their positions—equinoctial or equatorial; east; erect or vertical; horizontal; inclining, etc., or from their purpose or method of use, as portable, reflecting, etc., or as in the case of the ring-dial, from their form. The word is derived from the Latindies. The style in the earliest dials was a vertical staff, but later it was found that reasonable accuracy could only be obtained by a style set parallel to the earth's axis—that is, inclined to the horizontal at the angle of latitude of the locality in which the dial was set.
Even before the first astronomical discoveries of the Babylonians, people had felt some need of a convenient device to mark and measure the passing of the time, especially the shorter divisions of recurring time, the time of day. Sunrise and sunset marked themselves by the horizon, but noon was harder to determine, and the points of mid-morning and mid-afternoon harder still. And with the knowledge of those regular movements in the heavens which determine time on earth, and with the closer division of the day into its hours, that need became a sheer necessity.
The obvious measure of the sun's movements was the moving shadow cast by the sun itself. And the earliest device for recording time was naturally the sun-dial. Its origin fades into the twilight of antiquity. Long before we know anything about him, primitive man measured the moving shadow of some tree. And it occurred to him to set up a post or pillar in some convenient place, and mark out the positions into which the shadow swung. The earliest sun-dials were of this pattern, with a vertical pointer ofgnomon, and the hours marked upon the ground. And it is related of the early Greeks that they told the time individually by marking and measuring the length of their own shadows. But the measure of time by the length of a shadow is very irregular at best, because of the yearly motion of the sun. The shortest shadow of the day will indeed fall at noon. But that noon shadow will vary in length according as the sun's noon is high in Summer or low in Winter; and so the whole scale of lengths will be different for every day in the year. If a three foot shadow means mid-afternoon today, it will mean quite another time tomorrow. And for measuring by thedirection of theshadow, the vertical gnomon is more irregular still. For the swing of the shadow would depend not only upon the sun's motion across the sky from East to West, but also upon his slant North and South along the sky. And this would change from day to day. The difficulty was to make a dial of which the shadow would move as regularly as the sun moves.
ANCIENT GREEK HEMICYCLEANCIENT GREEK HEMICYCLE
ANCIENT GREEK HEMICYCLE
This the ancients accomplished in a very simple and ingenious way. The sun moves in the sky as it were upon the inner surface of a hollow globe or sphere. So they made the dial a little hemisphere, place with its hollow side up toward the sky as a bowl stands on a table. The pointer was placed above and to the South of this, on the side toward the sun; and the Time was marked by the shadow of the tip end of the pointer which was a little ball or bead. The path of this shadow across the bowl reproduced exactly on a small scale the path of the sun across the great bowl of the heavens. And it was then an easy matter to mark off the bowl into equal divisions which the shadow would cross at equal intervals of the day. Of course, the track of the shadow changed with the season of the year. But it moved always as the sun moved, and just as regularly, giving a true measure of the solar day.
The principle of this was applied in several interesting variations. The defect of the Hemicycle, as this hollow type of dial was called, was that it could not be read accurately for short intervals. Ashadow moving only a few inches in the whole day must move so slowly that one could hardly see it move at all. To mark the minutes, it must move faster, just as the minute hand of your watch moves faster than the hour hand, and the second hand faster still. One cannot read seconds from the hour hand, however accurately it moves, because it moves so slowly. So the idea was applied by making the shadow move across a street or courtyard, down one side and across and up the other side, as the sun opposite went up and across and down the sky. Sometimes the place was partly roofed over, and a single beam of light admitted through a small hole at the South end. The resulting spot of light would then move in the same way. The long sunbeam or shadow moved faster, and so could be read at shorter intervals. The Hemicycle is not certainly known to have been invented until long after this, about B. C. 350. But the principle of it is so simple and so entirely such as would occur to an intelligent man still ignorant of its mathematical explanation, that we may not unreasonably suppose it to have been discovered by experiments long before.
ANCIENT ROMAN HEMICYCLEANCIENT ROMAN HEMICYCLE
ANCIENT ROMAN HEMICYCLE
The final improvement of the sundial was the discovery that by slanting the gnomon so that it pointed exactly toward the North Pole of the sky, the direction of its shadow could be made to show the solar time correctly. Since the sky is infinitely far away, the line of the gnomon would then lie parallel to the axis of the heavens. And the sun, moving parallel to the celestial Equator, would always move straight across the gnomon. In other words, he would practically revolve around its sloping edge. Therefore the North and South motion of the sun would be as it were along the edge of the gnomon, and would not influence the direction of the shadow at all. His East and West motion alone would govern the swing of the shadow; and the dial would keep true time with the sun for every day in the year. There was no longer any necessity for hollowing out the dial itself into the concave form; it might just as well be the more convenient flat surface, and this might be either vertical or horizontal, so long as the gnomon pointed straight to the Celestial Pole. All that was needed was to mark out on the dial the true direction in which the shadow fell for each hour of the day.
OLD ENGLISH DIALOLD ENGLISH DIAL
OLD ENGLISH DIAL
Just when or by whom the instrument was thus scientifically perfected is not known. The calculations necessary to the projection of the hour lines upon a flat surface could hardly have been performed before Greek times. The Greeks ascribed the invention of the sundial to Anaximander, in the sixth century B. C., but sundials of various types had been known in various parts of the world long before then. On the other hand, the Hemicycle remained the common form of the instrument all through the classic period and even afterwards. The Babylonians were quite capable of understanding the principle of the sloping gnomon. And once this was discovered, it would have been entirely practical to set up the new dial beside a Hemicycle or Clepsydra, and find the angles of the hour lines by experiment. These, once laid out correctly, would be determined once for all. Even at its best the sundial had certain very marked limitations. Scientifically constructed, it would keep accurate time according to the visible sun. But it could not be read accurately unless made inconveniently large. It was inaccurate when removed from its original latitude, or displaced from a true North and South position; so that in any portable form it became a very rough measure indeed. Moreover, it was of course entirely useless at night or in bad weather or in shadow. And finally, it was never absolutely exact under the most ideal conditions, because of what is known as the Equation of Time. The Earth does not, in fact, move around the sun at an absolutely regular rate of speed; it moves a trifle faster during certain parts of the year and slower at others. The sun therefore varies correspondingly his apparent speed along the Ecliptic, so that even from noon to noon the sun isnot always precisely on time. He may be as much as fifteen minutes late or early, according to the season. And our modern days are measured according to the sun's average rate, so as to allow for this variation and keep every day exactly twenty-four hours long. This of course no sun-dial can possibly be made to do, since it must follow the actual sun.
The sun-dial has remained in use to the present day. It seems strange to think of a sun-dial being used as a standard for setting clocks and actually to regulate the running of trains. But these things were done in civilized Europe within the last half century. It was only when the railroad and the telegraph had made standard time at once necessary and easy to obtain that the sun-dial altogether lost its position of authority.
Sun-Dials, Descriptions—Classical sun-dials were of many forms. Vitruvius, the Roman engineer, mentions thirteen, some of them portable; and ascribes the invention of the Hemicycle to the Babylonian astronomer and priest, Berosus. There was a famous dial of this type at the base of Cleopatra's Needle in Egypt. It is now at the British Museum. And the Emperor Augustus, returning from his Egyptian wars, brought home to Rome an obelisk which he set up as the gnomon of a huge dial in the Campus Martius. At Athens there was the famous Tower of the Winds; octagonal in shape, with a weather vane above, and below around the tower, the hours and the winds, to each of which the Greeks gave a personality and a name. There is a curious bit of accidental poetry in the marking of the sun-dial in Greece. The Greek numerals, like the Roman, were simply the letters of their alphabet arranged in a certain order. The hot hours of the day from noon to four o'clock were those commonly devoted by the Greeks to rest and recreation. Reckoning the day from sunrise, this period ran from the sixth hour through the ninth. And the numeral letters for Six, Seven, Eight and Nine, which marked those hours upon the dial, spell out the Greek word ΖἩΟΙ, the imperative of the verb tolive. The poet Lucian thus points the moral:
Six hours to labor, four to leisure give;In them—so say the dialled hours—LIVE.
Six hours to labor, four to leisure give;In them—so say the dialled hours—LIVE.
Six hours to labor, four to leisure give;In them—so say the dialled hours—LIVE.
Six hours to labor, four to leisure give;
In them—so say the dialled hours—LIVE.
The shepherds of the Pyrenees still consult their pocket dials. And the Turk makes a sun-dial of his two hands by holding them up with the tips of the thumbs joined horizontally and the forefingers extended upward; so that the shadow of one forefinger falls toward the other and by its position roughly indicates the time. But even now, when it has nearly gone from practical use, the sun-dial, as an appropriate adornment of our public parks and our private gardens, is becoming increasingly fashionable in our own generation.
OLD FRENCH WALL DIALOLD FRENCH WALL DIAL
OLD FRENCH WALL DIAL
Sun-dials are common in almost all parts of the world, and not a few of them have in one way or another become famous. The largest is at Jaipur in India, and was erected about 1730. Its gnomon is ninety feet high and one hundred and forty-seven feet long. A flight of stone steps run up the slope of it, and at the top there is a sort of little watch-tower. And the shadow, which falls upon a great stone quadrant instead of upon a flat surface, moves at the rate of two and a half inches a minute. Another great dial is the so-called Calendar Stone of Mexico, which was made by the Aztec priests more than a hundred years before the Spaniards came. It weighs nearly fifty tons, and is not only a sun-dial but a representation of the zodiac and a diagram of the astronomical changes of the year: thus showing that the ancient Mexicans in their own way paralleled the astrology of the Babylonians on the other side of the world. Probably the most expensive and elaborate sun-dial ever built was the one set up in 1669 by King CharlesIIof England in front of the banqueting house at White Hall in London. It was in the form of a tall pyramid on which were two hundred and seventy-one different dials, giving not only the hour of the day but various astronomical and geographical indications as well. The place called Seven Dials in London takes its name from a tall pillar with sun-dials around its top which used to stand at the junction of seven streets radiating starwise from that spot as a center. The pillar was overthrown in 1773 by a party of vandals digging for buried treasure which they believedto have been hidden beneath its base. Extensive list, descriptions and illustrations, See Book of Sun-dials, Mrs. Alfred Gatty; Sun-dials and Roses, Mrs. Alice Morse Earle.
OLD ENGLISH PILLAR DIALOLD ENGLISH PILLAR DIAL
OLD ENGLISH PILLAR DIAL
Sun-Dials, Greek—1. Diogenes asserts that the first Greek dial or gnomon was erected by Anaximander of Miletus. It was probably a vertical rod on a horizontal plane. This was two centuries after the Dial of Ahaz. 2. On the "Tower of the Winds" in Athens—a dial on each face.
Sun-Dial, Hollow—A form of sun-dial invented by the Chaldean Berosus. A hollow hemisphere with a bead at its center, whose shadow indicated the hour of the day.
Sun-Dial, Mottoes—On nearly all sun-dials both ancient and modern there there is inscribed a motto—usually of the moral significance of the passage of time.
Very ancient also, as well as equally common in modern times is the custom of placing upon the sun-dial some appropriate motto expressive of the mystery of Time. There are hundreds of such mottoes, ranging in sentiment from the old Roman one:Horas non numero nisi Serenas. "I number no hours but the fair ones," to the couplet of a modern poet:
"Time flies, you say? Ah no,Alas! Time stays; we go."
"Time flies, you say? Ah no,Alas! Time stays; we go."
"Time flies, you say? Ah no,Alas! Time stays; we go."
"Time flies, you say? Ah no,
Alas! Time stays; we go."
And these two thoughts, expressed in many forms, represent fairly the tenor of most of them. There is a story of a lazy apprentice asking a motto for his dial, to whom his master sharply replied: "Begone about your business!" and the fellow, appropriately enough, took that for the motto required. It is at least a familiar sentiment, especially in Puritan times; and equally so during the Middle Ages is that more mystic suggestion,Umbra Dei—"the Shadow of God."
portable sun-dial
Sun-Dial, Portable—Made in different shapes and upon different plans small enough to carry about. The most common form was the ring dial, consisting of a metal ring with a hole in it through which the light fell upon an inside ring adjustable to the day and month. It required careful orienting to be dependable as a time-indicator.
Sun-Dials, Roman—The first dial in Rome was set up B. C. 293 near the temple of Quirinus by Papirius Cursor. It served ninety-nine years; then one more accurate was set up beside it. Before that, no time was noted except the rising and setting of the sun. Emperor Augustus erected a dial at Campus Martius. A dial captured in Sicily during the first Punic war was set up in the Forum about 263 B. C. and used for years before they learned that it was inaccurate in that latitude, being designed for the latitude of Sicily.
Sunk-Seconds—A dial in which the seconds circle is sunk below the rest of the dial. It allows the hour hand to be placed closer to the face thus making a thinner model possible.
Supplementary Arc—See: "Lifting Arc."
Sweep-Seconds—See:Center-Seconds.
Table Roller—The roller of a lever escapement which carries the impulse pin.
Tell-Tale Clock—A clock by which a record is left of periodical visits of some one as a night-watchman.
Template or Timplet—One of the four facets that surround a cut gem.
Tenon—A projection at the end of a piece cut to fit into a corresponding mortise.
Terry, Eli—The first man to make clocks by machinery in America. When it was learned that he planned to make two hundred clocks he was much laughed at. He was born at East Windsor,Conn., in 1772. His first clocks were made by hand, the movements being of wood. He was the leading maker of wooden clocks in America. He invented the shelf clock which contained distinctly new inventions and he introduced the pillar scroll-top case. He was a mechanical genius and contributed a great deal to developing clock-making in America into a great industry. He died in 1852.
Third Wheel—The wheel in the train between the center wheel and the fourth wheel.
Thales—A celebrated Ionian astronomer, one of the Seven Sages of Greece. He was born about 640 B. C., and is credited by Herodotus with having predicted an eclipse of the sun occurring about 609 B. C. He was the author of several solutions of geometrical problems. He died about 550 B. C.
Thomas, Seth—Born at Wolcott,Conn., 1785. A very successful clockmaker who contributed probably more than any other man toward popularizing the modern cheap clock. The Seth Thomas Clock Co., of today, he started in 1813 with twenty operatives. By 1853 it had nine hundred. He died in 1859.
Three-Quarter Plate—A three-quarter plate watch is one in which there is a piece cut out from the top plate large enough to permit the balance to rotate on a level with that plate. It is the most common form at present in use in both cheap and high grade watches, and found in both "pillar" and "bridge" models.
time candle
Time-Candles—Candles in alternate black and white sections were used to mark the passage of time in Europe and Asia for a long time. In England and France they were used to limit the bidding at an auction. The phrase "by inch of candle" meant that the one bidding when the flame expired was the successful bidder. King Alfred is said to have used time-candles and to have inclosed them in thin horn plates to protect them from drafts, thus originating the lantern.
Timekeeper—Any device primarily concerned with measuring and indicating the sub-divisions of the day.
Tompion, Thomas—"The father of English Watchmaking." Born 1638. He was the leading watchmaker at the court of CharlesII. He found the construction of the time-keeping part of watches in a very indifferent condition and he left English clocks and watches the finest in the world, although many great improvements were made after his time. He associated closely with such scientists as Hooke, and Barlow, and made practical application of their theories—two notable instances being the cylinder escapement and the balance-spring. Tompion was the first to number his watches consecutively for the purpose of identification though he did not so mark his early ones. There is a famous clock in the pumproom at Bath, England, of Tompion's construction. Little is known of his domestic life but he appears to have been unmarried. He died in 1713 and is buried in Westminster Abbey. Tompion was master of the Worshipful Clockmakers' Company in 1704.
Top Plate—The plate in a watch farthest from the dial. In full plate watches it is circular; in three-quarter plate or half-plate watches a part is cut away.
Tower of the Winds
Tower of the Winds—An octagonal tower north of the Acropolis of Athens spoken of as horological by Vario and Vitruvius. Believed to have had a sundial on each of its eight faces and to have contained a clepsydra fed by a spring.
Train—The toothed wheels of a watch or clock which connect the barrel or fusee with the escapement. In a going-barrel watch the teeth about the barrel drive the center pinion which drives the center wheel and then in turn the third wheel pinion, third wheel, fourth wheel pinion and fourth wheel, escape pinion and escape wheel.
Tripping—The running past the pallet's locking face, of an escape wheel tooth.
Vacheron and Constantin—In 1840 established the firstcompletewatch factory in Switzerland. Not until later,however, was motor power used instead of foot-power; and later still manufacture by machinery. The work in this factory is carried on under a combination of all accepted methods.
Vailly, Dom—A Benedictine monk of about 1690 who made a water clock which Beckmann says was the first to be constructed on a really scientific principle. SeeClocks, Interesting Old—Vailly's.
Van der Woerd, Charles—A prominent man in connection with watch manufacturing in this country. In 1864 he invented an automatic pinion cutter; in 1874 an automatic screw machine. From 1876-1883 he was superintendent of the Waltham factory.
Verge—The pallet axis of the verge escapement. See diagram of Verge Escapement. It carries the balance at its top.
Verge Watch—A watch with a verge escapement.
Vick, Henry de.SeeDe Vick.
Volute—A flat spiral.
Volute-Spring—A flat metallic spring coiled in a spiral conical form and compressible in the direction of its axis.
Wallingford, Richard—An English mechanic and astronomer of the fourteenth century. He made a clock which is supposed to have been the first that was regulated by a fly-wheel. Several authorities, however, claim that Wallingford's "clock" was actually a planetarium.
Waltham—A town in Massachusetts—the site of the first successful watch factory in America. At present a great watch making center.
Watch—In modern parlance, a small timepiece to carry about on the person. Formerly a timepiece whichshowedtime in distinction to clock whichstrucktime. Derham (1734) uses the term to indicate all timepieces driven by springs. The term may have been derived from the Swedishvacht, Germanwachen, or Saxonwoecca. The spaces of time between the fillings of a clepsydra were also called "watches."
Watch Collections—For list of principal collections, past and present, see Jewelers' Circular files August to December 1915. List compiled by Major Paul M. Chamberlain of Chicago. For list of principal present collections, see Appendix to this volume derived from the Chamberlain Compilation.
Watchmakers' Schools—American. In America these schools usually teach watch-repairing and not the making of watches. Some of them offer courses in making watches but few pupils avail themselves of these courses. List of: De Selins Watch School, Attica,Ind.; Detroit Technical Institute—Detroit,Mich.; Kansas City Watchmaking and Engraving School, Kansas City,Mo.; Needles Institute of Watchmaking, Kansas City,Mo.; Bowman Technical School, Lancaster,Pa.; Ries and Armstrong, Macon,Ga.; Drexler School for Watchmaking, Milwaukee,Wis.; Newark Watchmaking School, Newark,N. J.; Philadelphia College of Horology, Philadelphia,Pa.;St.Louis Watchmaking School,St.Louis,Mo.; Schwartzman's Trade Schools, San Francisco,Cal.; Stone School of Watchmaking,St.Paul,Minn.; Waltham Horological School, Waltham,Mass.; Bradley Polytechnic Institute, Peoria,Ill.
Watchmakers' Schools, Switzerland—Usually under government management. Teach very thoroughly and completely the art of making a watch from the beginning.
Watch-Papers—During the 18th century it was a fad in England and America to carry small round papers, which exactly fitted the case of a watch. On these were portraits and verses, the latter of doubtful merit and usually of sinister or gloomy significance.
Waterbury—A town in Connecticut long a center of clock and watch making in America. Home of the original Waterbury watch. Location of principal factory ofRobt.H. Ingersoll &Brothers., manufacturers of the Ingersoll watches.
Water-Clock—Any device, as a clepsydra, for measuring time by the fall or flow of water. More commonly applied to the type in which wheels are turned by water or in such as those in which water sets machinery of some form in motion asVailly's water-clock. SeeClock, Vailly's.
Wick Timekeeper—A wick or rope made of some fiber resembling flax or hemp with knots tied at regular intervalsand so treated that upon ignition it would smolder instead of breaking into flame. Early in use in Japan and China. Time was estimated by the burning between the knots.
Wieck, Henry De—SeeDe Vick.
Willard, Aaron—Born 1757. Probably learned his trade from his older brothers Simon and Benjamin. He made tall, and shelf clocks, later banjo clocks—so-called from their shape—gallery clocks, and regulators. A better business man than his brothers and successful from the start. His clocks did not lack decorative merit but were inferior to Simon Willard's. He made a greater number than his brother because more successful in a business way.
Willard, Benjamin—Older brother of Simon and Aaron Willard. Among the first of American clockmakers. Born 1743. Made, probably, only tall clocks with handsome cases and some with musical attachments. Not so good as the clocks of Aaron and Simon Willard but older and rarer now.
Willard, Simon—Born at Grafton,Mass., 1753. One of the earliest Massachusetts clock makers who disputed the claim of the Connecticut makers for the credit of revolutionizing the clock industry in America. So far as cases go they excelled Terry, Thomas, and others. But to the Connecticut makers belongs the credit for having developed clock making into a great industry. Willard at first made eight-day tall clocks and shelf clocks, later wall clocks which he called "time pieces." In 1802 he practically abandoned the making of tall clocks, and confined himself to his "time pieces" and special orders for tower and gallery clocks. For a detailed list of his productions see his Biography by John Ware Willard. He was an intimate friend of Jefferson, Madison and other leading men of the time. Died 1848.
Worshipful Clockmakers' Company of London, The—Incorporated August 22, 1631, under special charter by King CharlesIof England. Was given the sole privilege of regulating the watch and clock trade in and for ten miles around London.
Webster, Ambrose—Mechanical superintendent, and later assistant superintendent, of the Waltham factory until his resignation in 1876. He systematized the work in the shop, standardized the measuring system, and forced automatic machinery to the front. He designed the first watch factory lathe with hard spindles and bearings of the two taper variety. He made the first interchangeable standard for parts of lathes. He invented many machines now in use, among them being the automatic pinion cutter.
Weight-Clock—A clock whose driving power is a weight suspended by a cord wound on a drum or cylinder.
Weights—The first clocks were made with a weight on a cord which was wound around a cylinder connected with the train. The weight descending caused the cylinder to revolve, setting the train in motion. Too rapid unwinding was prevented by the escapement. The weight as a driving power is still used, especially in large clocks.
Wheel, Count—The wheel carrying the locking-plate in a striking mechanism.
Year—Astronomically, the period of time occupied by the earth in making one complete revolution around the sun. The calendar year is an arbitrarily determined division of time, approximating more or less closely the astronomical year. SeeCalendar, Gregorian.
Zech, Jacob—Of Prague. Invented the fusee about 1525. The Society of Antiquaries possesses an example of his handiwork—a table time-piece with a circular brass-gilt case 9¾" in diameter and 5" high. For minute description see Archaeologia vol.xxxiii.
Zero—A time-telling term originating or at least made common during the Great War. Word commonly used in a military sense to indicate a secret instant of time from which an attack in its various stages is scheduled.