A person who has not given careful thought or study to the matter of time-keeping can have but little conception of the extreme minuteness of the deviations from absolute perfection of rate which have been attained by modern timekeepers. On the other hand, to one who has given the subject careful con sideration, it seems almost marvelous that mechanism can be created which makes pos sible the marking or determination of such almost inhnitesmal time intervals as are taken into account in ascertaining the longitude of any location for purposes cif neeigatirni, or even of securing safety in the MoVefrititt' of trains on our modern railway systems.
For these reasons it may be well to briefly motion some of the agencies which are em ployed in the complete modern watch factory,' first for obtaining and indicating the exact standard time rate. It may Perhaps be needless to state that the ultimate standard for the entire world is the unvaryl) 7 movement of fixed stars across any civen Nearly 40 years ago the `, Nateh Company established an observatory equipped with a transit instrument and chronograph and also constructed two elaborate mean 'time which were most carefully in tutted •oh= piers. In telegraphic connect ,n with iht obi' servatory is the chronograph ',thigh is placed in the clerk room, which k )fated from dis turbing intluences of vibration and noise and is also so arranged as to maintain automatically a temperature whose variation at all seasons of the year does not exceed one-half degree Fah renheit. In taking the stellar observations the observer is able to record the exact in stant of the passage of a given star across the local meridian upon a sheet of record paper which also records the vibrations of the stend ard dock, at one second intervals. So aten
rate do these clocks run that in' a period of over two months their variation 'is less than three-tenths of a second. By 'means of an electric telegraph circuit the beats of the standard clock are given on telegraph wanders in all parts of the extensive factory. This method of time distribution is practically identical with that employed by the United States government in the naval observatory at Washington, D. C. In co-operation with the government wireless station at Arlington time signals were distributed throughout the entire country so that the standard time could be obtained by anyone who had a wireless outfit. On the orders of the government that all private wireless- stations be dismantled because of the state of war existing with Germany, the 14'altham Watch Company was compelled to resume the taking of its own observations for time, which had been discontinued the government had organized its distribution of time signals by wireless means.
This feature of providing 'accurate timing standards is peculiar to modem watch manu facturing and so far as is known no watch factory in the Old World is equipped in this manner. But, on the other hand, the Royal Observatory at Kew, England, and the gov ernwient observatory at Neuchatel, Switzer land, undertake the testing of the limited num bers of watches submitted by the manufactur ers of those two countries.
In conclusion, it may be said that notwith stinting the two or more centuries of priority and experience enjoyed by European watch makers, their extreme conservatism has al lowed them to be outstripped by the more pro gressive manufacturers of America, so that •modern is at the present time, and in its most advanced form, an exclusively American achievement.