Telling Time In The Dark

1895

It Needs Only a Little Calculation and Regular Habits.

"What time is it?"

"I think I can tell you without looking."

He drew out his watch and held it up close to his ear and slowly turned the stem winder. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight," he counted, and then he said: "That means 72 minutes. I wound the watch up tightly at 8 o'clock, and so the time ought to be about 12 minutes past 4. Let's see how near I came to it. Well, it's 4:18. I was only six minutes off."

The other was regarding him with amazement. "Do you mean to say that you can tell the time of day by winding up your watch?"

"Not exactly, but I can come mighty near it — usually within ten minutes — and it's very simple too. All you have to know is how long one tick in winding up will run the watch. I'll explain to you. Suppose that at 3 o'clock I wind up my watch until it is tight, as we say — that is, until another turn of the winder would apparently break a spring. At 5 o'clock I wind the watch again and find that the winder clicks 12 times before the watch is wound up to the place where it sticks. Then you know that 12 ticks will run the watch 120 minutes, and that one click represents ten minutes of time."

"What good is it to know that?"

"Well, suppose you go to bed at 11 o'clock tonight, and on retiring wind up your watch and put it under your pillow. During the night you wake up and wonder what time it is. You don't want to get up and light the gas. All you have to do is to pull that watch out from under The pillow, hold it to your ear and count the ticks as you wind. If you count 18, then you know that the watch has run down 180 minutes since 11 o'clock, and that the time must be very near 2 o'clock. To be sure, you can't tell the exact time, but you can generally got within a quarter of an hour of it."

"Wouldn't the same rule hold good for a clock or a watch which is wound with a key?"

"I dare say it would, but I never tried it on anything except a stem winding watch. I know a blind man who always tells time by winding his watch and counting the ticks. His sense of touch is quite delicate, and he can wind up his watch three or four times a day and then calculate within ten minutes of the correct time." — Chicago Record.

Cheap Watches

1895

It is to the late Aaron L. Dennison of Birmingham, England, more than to any one else that we owe cheap watches, which were never so abundant and so well made as now. Though he died in England, he was a Yankee and the father of watchmaking by machinery in America. It was in 1850 that he completed his model of the first watch of the pattern in use today. Previous to that time watches had been made by handwork, and the idea of making them in quantities on the interchangeable system was undreamed of. — New York World.


Tea Biscuit

It is a mistake to make a large tea biscuit properly speaking, a tea biscuit should not be more than 2 inches in diameter and proportionately thick when baked. This gives a delicate, moist, flaky biscuit, which will be cooked through before the outside crust has become hard or overbrown.

Railroad Men Must Have Good Watches

1895

The matter of time is receiving more attention now from railroad officials than in the past. This refers to watches carried by various employees, such as depot masters, engineers, firemen, switchmen, brakemen, conductors — in fact, everybody who has anything to do with the moving of trains.

Up to quite recently it was a go as you please matter about the class of watch carried and the condition of its machinery. It has been found that delays and even accidents have often been made possible by a small difference between the time indicated on the watches of different trainmen, and to remedy this several roads have adopted a system of strict supervision over all the watches carried by employees.

The Michigan Central a short time ago got in line with the movement. No special make of watch is made compulsory, but all must be up to a certain standard. Every month each employee must submit his watch to an examiner, who makes careful note of its condition and fills out a card giving full particulars. These cards are deposited at the depot in a box and are all examined by an official of the road. In this way the watches of all employees are kept in proper shape, and nobody is permitted to carry one that is out of condition. — Detroit Free Press.

Swiss Watch Schools

1895

The Progress of the Student Through the Great Manufactories.

The school the writer visited is the extensive one at Geneva. Being provided with the requisite permission and escorted by an alumnus of the institution, he was shown every courtesy and afforded every opportunity to observe.

One is first ushered into the beginner's room. To enter a boy must be at least 14. He will first be introduced to a wood turning lathe and set at turning out tool handles. He will be kept at this from eight days to seven weeks, according to aptitude. Then he will be advanced to the work of filing and shaping screwdrivers and similar tools. These and all other tools which he may afterward make will be his own. Being in course of time to some extent provided with tools, he will undertake making a large wooden pattern of a watch frame perhaps as large as a dining plate. After he has learned just how the frame is to be shaped he is given a ready cut one of brass of the ordinary size, and he begins drilling the holes for the wheels and screws. All along the master stands over him and instructs him. The circular pieces of brass which are put into his hands here he will go on with, and when the watch is completed that, too, will be his own.

He is then taught to make other fine tools and to finish the frame ready to receive the wheels.

Then he will leave the first room and pass up into one where he is taught to fit the stem winding parts and to do other fine cutting and filing by hand, to make watches that will strike the hour, minute, etc., for which class of work the Swiss are famous. One can readily conceive how exceedingly minute and exact such workmanship must be, particularly on the minute snail — that is, the guide which permits and arrests the striking, so that in addition to the hour and the quarter the very minute shall be sounded. — Theodore B. Wilson in Popular Science Monthly.

Her Watch

1895

The Scornful Jeweler Expressed Surprise That It Had Stopped.

A young girl took her watch into the jeweler's recently and explained that something was the matter with it. While the watchmaker examined it the owner of the fractious watch remarked that she did not see what made it act so.

"It is always stopping or having something happen to it," she said.

"Possibly you do not take good care of it," ventured the jeweler, closely regarding the interior of the watch.

"Oh, yes, I do. I wind it nearly every night, and I nearly always remember to take it out of my pocket when I take off my dress. The pocket in my gray dress is too large, though, and sometimes it falls into the bowl when I am washing."

"Water would ruin it if it got inside," remarked the jeweler.

"That little bit wouldn't," said the girl, with a very wise shake of the head. "It's only falls that hurt them. Once it fell out of the up stairs window, but it landed in the rosebush, and it wasn't hurt much. The time Johnny squeezed it by shutting the bureau drawer on it the crystal was broken, though."

By that time the jeweler had discovered that the balance wheel was out of place and two cogs broken.

"I don't see how it happened," said the girl in surprise. "It flew out of my blouse pocket yesterday when I was swinging dumbbells, but I did not suppose that was what hurt it."

"Those things seldom do," said the man, with a touch of scorn. — Philadelphia Press.

Miss Coote's Watch Returned

New York, 1895

Fred Simpson, Maurice Karp, and William Holly, who were arrested at Flushing charged with robbing their fellow students at the High school and stealing the watch of Miss Coote, one of the teachers, were arraigned before Judge Smith and admitted to bail for later hearing. Strong efforts are being made by influential friends of the boys' parents to have the charges dismissed. The watch stolen from Miss Coote three weeks ago was returned to her.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, Jan. 25, 1895, p. 1.

The Regulation of Clocks

1902

The remarkable pendulum experiment in the Pantheon at Paris to prove the rotation of the earth, strikingly illustrates the majestic uses of the familiar clock-maker's device.

It seems almost impossible of belief, in an age of well-regulated watches, that the clocks of Galileo's time could not be kept going at a uniform speed. Clocks went by means of a dragging weight, but the pendulum had not been thought of as a regulator. It occurred to Galileo to make a clock with the pendulum only, but of course, the work of turning the wheels stopped it. It was left to Haygens, in 1656, 14 years after the great astronomer's death, to combine the pendulum with the dragging weight and thus solve the problem of reckoning astronomical time with exactitude.

Keep Time By The Sundial

1912

In Beautifying Its Forest Park This Kansas Town Has Added a Utility

Ottawa, Kan. — The big city has no corner on civic beauty. Nor are pretty parks and ingenious decorative schemes confined to estates of landed gentry. A country town can, and often does, furnish excellent examples of artistic treatment of bits of woodland.

Ottawa has no copyrighted system of boulevards other than its well paved streets, but the folks who make their homes here pride themselves upon their parks — there are two of them — City Park and Forest Park.

In Forest Park there are samples of the ordinary park embellishments, such as a fountain, cemented fish pond, lettered flower beds and sanitary drinking fountains. But the newest addition is a floral sundial. It is the town's latest civic pride.

J. H. Eason, park keeper for Ottawa, planned and constructed the natural timepiece this summer, it being an excellent summer for the use of sundials. He fashioned it according to he minutest directions of chronometer and sundial experts. As a result the dial is accurate to the minute when the sun's changes are figured — and Mr. Eason has provided a card with printed directions for each day of the year. The number of minutes the sun is "slow" or "fast," in comparison with the standard meridian, is placed in plain View Of park visitors. Anyone may read the card and set his watch the exact time.

The dial is fourteen feet in diameter and the indicator, a pointed post, is eight feet above the ground. Numerals of cement number the hours upon which the shadow of the indicator falls in turn from sunup to sundown. Lines of foliage mark the half-hours and the quarter-hours. Pigmy hedge forms a decorative design in front of the figures.

Powerful Aero Engines

1917

In testing an airplane engine of 200 horse power a Detroit company mounted it upon a heavy motor truck, and the aerial propeller sent the track flying along a boulevard at the rate of more than 40 miles an hour. This was a speed that the truck could not begin to develop under its own motive power, and the method furnished a better practical test of the 12-cylinder airplane engine than was possible in the testing laboratory or in any stationary trial on blocks.

As an additional test the rear wheels of the two-ton truck were locked, so that they could not revolve, and in this condition it was driven across a ball park by the airplane engine and propeller through heavy drifts of snow and over ice. The motor weighs 800 pounds and develops power sufficient to drive a 12-passenger airplane at 40 miles an hour. — Popular Mechanics Magazine.


Won His Lost Watch

An extraordinary watch story is told by a Welsh campaigner home on leave from African battlefields. When he was in German West Africa he lost a wristlet watch. It was not very valuable, so he did not worry a lot about it. But many months later, when on active service in German East Africa, he took a share in a raffle for a watch. He won, and to his amazement found that the prize was his own watch.

Much Fun with Stop Watch

1910

Owner Describes a Variety of Ways in Which He Has Found It Affords Him Diversion

"Having a stop watch," says the man who had just bought one, "reveals a whole lot of ways of amusing yourself that you'd hardly think of before.

"Since I've had a watch I've been able to while away a lot of time. Not a pun, either. For instance, walking in the city where the numbered blocks make calculating easy, I am continually holding the watch on my pedestrian efforts.

"I figure first how long it takes me walk a block. Going at top speed so that some folks think I'm mad, I have been able to do 88 yards in 29 2-5 seconds, or about seven miles an hour.

"Then, of course, I time all intermediate distances up to a mile. I've learned pretty well just what four miles an hour means, and I want to tell you that folks who speak so glibly about doing that ought to hold a watch on their performances to see what it means.

"The other day I got up some sprint races between some boys, just so I could time their running. I find there's lot of fun, too, in making imaginary bets with myself how long it will take me to catch up with some one else walking in the same direction or how long it will be before a car gets to a certain crossing.

"Also a stop watch is a great thing for timing how long you can hold your breath."

Recovers Long-Lost Watch

1915

Eighteen Years in Mill Race and Still Running?

PENN YAN, N. Y., Dec. 16. — One day eighteen years ago W. Henry Townsend, county superintendent of the poor, lost a watch from his pocket. He worked at two tasks that day — assisting in cleaning out a mill race and unloading straw. He searched the straw without finding the timepiece. The mill race was soon full of water so that further search could not be made.

A few days ago the race was cleaned out and a watch was found. Townsend examined it and found in it his old timepiece. It was in excellent condition after its long rest under the water.

One of the official's friends asked him if the watch was still running and Mr. Townsend gravely replied that it surely was. It was a stem winder, he said, and very likely the action of the swiftly running water had kept it wound up all these years.


"Spook" Creates Terror

MAUCH CHUNK, Pa., Dec. 16. — A black-gowned figure, whose face is hidden by a long black veil, has been terrorizing people of this section for some time past. The "spook" only appears at night.

Sandglasses Still Used To Measure Time

1900

A Sure and Silent Timer

Strange to say, the sandglass is still used to measure varying periods of time. The size depends upon the purposes to which they are to be put. The hour glass is still in use in the sick room, and in the music room, in both places affording a sure and silent indication of the progress of time.

Half-hour glasses are used in schools, and fifteen-minute glasses are used for medical purposes, and the sandglass also goes into the kitchen as an aid to exact cooking. There are also ten-minute glasses, five-minute and three-minute glasses, the two latter being used to time the boiling period of eggs. The three-minute sandglass is called an "egg boiler." Sand-glasses are also used for scientific purposes and on shipboard.

The sand is carefully prepared by a thorough cleaning, including boiling. It is then baked dry, and then ground into the requisite fineness and uniformity, as sharp sand would be likely to become wedged in the opening between the two sections of the glass. The sand is then introduced into the glass through an opening left for that purpose in the end of one bulb, the opening then being sealed, the right quantity in each sand glass is gauged by actually timing the flow from one part of the glass to the other, and every glass is individually treated like a good thermometer. The glasses are usually mounted in cylindrical frames or holders, so that the twin bulbs can be seen at all times.


Why We Are Like the Crow

Aside from the special question of profit and loss, we have a warm side toward the crow, he is so much like ourselves, said the late Henry Ward Beecher. He is lazy, and that is human; he is cunning.and that is human. He thinks his own color is best, and loves to hear his own voice, which are eminent traits of humanity. He will never work when he can get another to work for him — a genuine human trait. He eats whatever he can get his claws upon, and is less mischievous with a belly full than when hungry and this is like man. Take off their wings and put them in breeches, and crows would make fair average men. Give men wings and reduce their smartness a little, and many of them would be almost good enough to be crows.

Mortuary Lore: Curious Epitaphs

1900

Clockmaker Expresses Hopes in Hereafter

Collecting epitaphs is not a particularly cheerful sort of hobby, but a well-known Philadelphia business man has acquired the grewsome fad, and is now thoroughly saturated with all sorts of mortuary lore.

Curious epitaphs find their way into print from time to time, many of which bear small traces of authenticity, and these are eagerly sought after by the collector in question, who inserts them in a book which he keeps for that purpose. His great pride, however, is in the inscriptions which he has seen with his own eyes, and copied from tombstones which have come under his own observation. He has traveled extensively, and it doesn't make any difference where he is, whether in an old English cathedral town or a "boom" city of the far west, his first question is, "Where is your most interesting burying-ground?"

While in England last summer he came across a couple of rather curious epitaphs in the old churchyard at Balsover, in Derbyshire. One read as follows: "Here lies in a horizontal position the outside case of Thomas Hindle, clock and watchmaker, who departed this life wound up in hope of being taken in hand by his Maker, and being thoroughly cleaned, repaired and set a-going in the world to come, on the 15th of August, 1836, in the nineteenth year of his age."

The following, from the same churchyard, is a curious instance of economy such as one seldom encounters — that of a man being buried in the same grave with his three wives, and with but one stone to mark their final and collective resting place. Following is the inscription: "Sacred to the memory of Margaret Armstrong, wife of William Armstrong of Balsover Moor, who departed this life Aug. 2, 1835, aged 33 years. Also William Armstrong, who died Dec. 10, 1862, aged 67 years. Also Ann, second wife of the above, who died Feb. 21, 1838, aged 28 years. Also Charlotte, third wife of the above, who died June 4, 1864, aged 42." — Philadelphia Record.

Real Gratitude — Guilty Man Happy With Not-Guilty Verdict

1914

When Blaine was a young lawyer and cases were few, he was asked to defend a poverty-stricken tramp accused of stealing a watch. He pleaded with all the ardor at his command, drawing so pathetic a picture with such convincing energy that at the close of his argument the court was in tears and even the tramp wept. The jury deliberated a few minutes and returned the verdict "not guilty." Then the tramp drew himself up, tears streaming down his face as he looked at the future "plumed knight" and said: "Sir, I have never heard so grand a plea. I have not cried before since I was a child. I have no money with which to reward you, but (drawing a package from the depths of his ragged clothes), here's the watch; take it and welcome." — Pittsburgh Chronicle Telegraph.


New Idea for Belting

Those who buy belting for machinery will not have to worry about the price of leather in the years to come if a certain sort of belting which is being manufactured by a firm in Connecticut proves to be a success. The new product is called flexible steel belting and is really a step further than the chain and sprocket idea. The belting is made in a complicated series of links and can be used on all pulleys of from two inches in diameter to the largest size. It has been designed especially for service where atmospheric conditions are bad for leather and rubber belts.

An Alarm Wrist Watch That Heats Up To Wake You

1920

Alarm Wrist Watch

With an alarm wrist watch is supplied an electric battery to awaken a sleeper at a designated time by sending a current through and warming a strip of metal on his arm.


In Common Things

A man must invest himself near at hand and in common things, and be content with a steady and moderate return, if he would know the blessedness of a cheerful heart and the sweetness of a walk over the round earth. —John Burroughs.


Where He Shows

Chester was slow in wit, but he appreciated the aptness of speech in one of his playmates, evidently, for when asked why he was anxious to be in Jack's company so much he replied, "Oh, everything he says has a kick in it."

—Bedford Gazette, Bedford, Pennsylvania, January 9, 1920, page 4.