78.
A Watch to go constantly, and yet needs no other winding from the first setting on the Cord or Chain, unless it be broken, requiring no other care from one then to be now and then consulted with concerning the hour of the day or night; and if it be laid by a week together, it will not erre much, but the oftener looked upon, the more exact it sheweth the time of the day or night.
[A continually-going Watch.] A watch having the dial enclosed under a metal case, as in hunting watches, is no doubt to be so contrived that the opening and closing of such case, to ascertain the time, shall act more or less to wind it up. A room door has been thus made to transmit power through attached levers to keep a clock constantly wound little by little, every time on opening and closing the door.
His list of certain of his inventions gives a different reading to this article; as follows:—“I can render an ordinary watch, which, being once wound up, will go constantly during a man’s life, being used but once in 24 hours; and, though oftener looked on, it is still the same; and though not looked on for a week, still the same, if not bruised.”—See [Appendix A.]
And in his patent of 1660, we have again a third reading, viz:—“To make a watch or clock without string or chain, or any other kind of winding up but what of necessity must follow, if the owner or keeper of the said watch or clock will know the hour of day or night; and yet if he lay it aside several days or weeks without looking or meddling with it, it shall go very well, and as justly as most watches that ever were made.”—See [Appendix B.]
In “Humane Industry,” chapter I, occur the following remarks, “On Dials,” page 8:—“The wit of man hath been luxuriant and wanton in the inventions of late years; some have made watches so small and light, that ladies hang them at their ears like pendants and jewels; the smallness and variety of tools that are used about these small engines, seem to me no less admirable than the engines themselves; and there is more art and dexterity in placing so many wheels and axles in so small a compass (for some French watches do not exceed the compass of a farthing) than in making clocks and great machines.” It is also stated at page 9, that “In some towns of Germany and Italy, there are very rare and elaborate clocks to be seen in their Town Halls; wherein a man may read Astronomy, and never look up to the skies.” We are next informed: “But the exactest clocks and watches that are, are defective, and want correction; for in watches, the first half hour goes faster than the last half, and the second hour is slower than the first, and the third then the second.” Page 12.
79.
A way to lock all the Boxes of a Cabinet, (though never so many) at one time, which were by particular Keys appropriated to each Lock opened severally, and independent[7] the one of the other, as much as concerneth the opening of them, and by these[8] means cannot be left opened unawares.
Footnotes
[7]this—for these.