Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

342 BRITAIN AT WORK. MAKING CASES FOR CLOCKS. aid of a charcoal furnace, and the seconds dial, when required, is formed by cutting a disc out of the hour dial, and cementing a thinner disc into the orifice, to allow the second hand to lie in the hollow so formed. The several parts are now taken in charge by the springer and timer, the expert whose lot it is to attach the spring to the balance, to poise the balance, and to adjust the whole until accurate time is recorded. But before this the watch passes to the finisher and examiner, who also has to enlist the services of the case maker. The case is made by drawing gold or silver wire through hardened steel plates upon a draw bench, bending the ribbons so obtained into the shape of the circular bezels and the band, inserting into the rim of one bezel the flattened or domed disc which forms the back, and into the other the watch glass. Before the case is finished, however, it is submitted to the tender mercies of the Assay Office of the Goldsmiths’ Hall, where it obtains the hall-mark, and after its return to the maker the back is engine-turned if necessary, although the proportion of engine- turned cases now called for is a very small percentage of the total output of the trade. The number of gold cases hall-marked in the year 1901 was 6,592, and of silver 3,764. One final ordeal is reserved for the watches of the better class, that of being sent to the Kew Observatory for the purpose of being tested. At a cost of a guinea the watch is kept under observation for forty-five days, divided into eight periods, each of which tests the capabilities of the watch under fixed conditions, such as “ watch with dial up in the refrigerator,” “ watch with dial up in the oven.” 1 his department, which represents the refinement of watch-making, and is as far removed as the poles from the imported article which is offered for a few shillings— less than the cost of a pair of jewel holes —brings us by a natural transition to the manufacture of marine chronometers, a branch of the industry in which Great Britain has always been supreme. A box chronometer is to all intents and purposes a magnified watch, except that it possesses several delicate means of compensating for variations of temperature, violent jerking, the magnetic deflection caused by the iron in the ship, and so forth. Otherwise the same order of manufacture, by the same