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THE SOUTHERN WOULD, OCTOBER 1, 1882, 5 to this the Wnterbury watch, as it is now called, has been steadily produced at the rate of six hundred complete watches in a day, or about one a minute. The factory erected hy the Waterbury Watch Company is admirably located in the center of a large plot of level ground, orn amented with lawns and shade trees and in convenientAeach of the center of the city. The building is of brick and con sists of three parts, a square central building four stories high, a long wing or extension in the rear thi$e stories high, and a one-story annex or smaller wing. This covers the present plant, but there is ample space for two more wings which the company contem plate building. In the basement of the central building is the spring depart ment and the pattern shop. On the first floor of the wing is the machine shop, that is well supplied with tools of the latest and most improved design. This shop is fully occupied in making and repairing the fine machinery used in the actual work of making watches. In all this work the metric system is used, and the best metric gauges are used throughout the factory. These gauges will measure thousandths of a centimeter. A special set of standard gauges are always kept on hand, and by these all the gauges used are frequently tested. There is nothing like testing your tests in such an art as this. The next floor of the wing is devoted to the case department. On the same floor of the main building are the offi ces of the company. Above the offices is the material room, where supplies of all the different parts of the watches are kept in glass jars on shelves or in drawers and cases. There is at all times in this room enough finished parts to make fifty thou sand watches, so that if any part of the factory should be disabled the making of watches could still proceed while repairs were being made. On the same floor is the designing room occupied by Mr. Buck, who made the original watch, and rooms of the model maker and the mechanical superin tendent, the draughtsman and the compa ny’s horological library. On the top floor of the wing is the train room, where all parts of the wheel work or train system are made and finished. On the top floor of the main building is the as sembly or finishing department. This is a large and lofty room, admirably lighted from the sides and roof and acknowledged by ex perts to be the finest watch assembly room in the world. It is here the parts are assem bled and the watches are put together, test ed, regulated, and made ready for sale. -The first requisites of a watch factory are neatness and abundance of light. It is now recognized that no man can do his best work unless he is physically comfortable. Excess of neat or cold, a poor light, and more than all, bad air, are posi tive hindrances to good work. Two men, equally skilled, one in a close, damp, or hot room with a bad light, and the other in a dry, sweet, and healthful room with the best light, and the man who has the most com fortable quarters will do tho most and best work in a day. It is now seen that every thing that contri butes to the physical and mental comfort of workmen or workwomen pays a good return on the cost In this factory it seems os if the walls were all windows. The ceilings are high and every room is comfortable and well ventilated. Everywhere there is the utmost neatness, no dust, no smoke, no bad air. Every man and woman is provided with fresh water for washing the hands and separate allowances of water for the face and for drinking. The illus tration on another page shows one of the wash and cloak rooms, and gives a suggestion of the neatness, to say nothing of the comfort that is insisted on In all parts of the factory. It is doubtful If in any works in the country more attention is paid to the comfort of the people employed. The motive power, plating and polishing departments and the machine shops require no particular mention. Each is provided with the best tools and, together, they give employment to sixty men. In the spring making department wo come to the first work of special interest. When the com pany began to make watches it was thought that a common watch-spring would serve the purpose. At the very outset difficulties were encountered. The spring must be a good one, of the best material and workman ship. Tlie difficulty was to get good steel. Every market in the world was searched for steel, and, after trying all brands it was found that American cold-rolled steel from Pittsburg, Pa., was the only thing that would meet the exacting demands of this watch. At first the springs were bought, but it was soon found that to get just the We may take for example the automatic wheel-cutter. This machine, that is hardly eighteen inches square, will space off, count and cut tho teeth of fifty wheels atone time. Moreover, it will cut just so many teeth, no more and no less, and every tooth and every wheel will be exactly alike, and when the work is done it will stop. The attendant picks up fifty brass blanks, just as they come from the stamping department, and slips them on to a mandrel. She then sets the right thing it was better to make the springs in the factory from the ribbons of steel os they came from the mill. It may be here remarked in passing that not only the steel but every part is produced in this country. The Waterbury is purely an American watch. The ribbons of steel that como from Pittsburg are wonderful for their uniform ity of gauge. They seldom vary more than one one thousandth of a centimeter in thickness in any part. Each ribbon is slit by machinery into narrow strips nine feet long, and these are then coiled into flat bun dles and made ready for hardening. After hardening they are then rubbed down with emery till they are everywhere exactly six one-thousandtbs of a centimeter thick. After the rubbing down, as shown in the accompanying picture of the department, comes the blueing or tempering and the winding into coils for the watch. The keystone of this whole art of watch making, as carried on in this country, is the train room. In this factory this department occupies the entire top floor of the wing. It is lofty, light, and well ventilated, and is re A PIVOT 1ATHR. garded as the finest train room in the United States. The interior is happily shown by the accompanying illustration. It is here the various wheels and pinions forming the train are made in whole or in part. The machinery used for this work is the most delicate and most costly in the world. Nearly all the machines arc watched and tended by girls. We will not say guided, for they are almost every one automatic in their action and will do everything but think. mandrel in the ma chine, covers it over with a metal shield to keep out the dust, gives a drop of oil here and there and starts the ma chine. It goes soberly on with the work, feed ing the blank wheels up to the cutting tool and turning out in a few minutes fifty finished wheels ready to go into fifty different watches. Meanwhile, the girl is preparing fifty more wheels for a second machine and by the time that machine is ready the first has stopped and is ready to be loaded again. Here is a girl at work with a tiny lathe, called the automatic staff or pivot lathe. This minute part of tho watch is of steel only fifty-three one hundrethspartof a cen timeter thick, and the part cut in the ma chine is only twenty-two thousandths of a centimeter in diameter, yet on this ma chine the girl can perform three thousand eight hundred operations in a single day. It is only one minute step in making the staff, for, small as it is, it goes through twenty-seven operations in twenty-seven dif ferent hands befoie it is finished. The il lustration gives a good idea of the machine, the work and the girl. This is only one machine, but is a fair sample of them all. Extreme fineness, per fection of finish, and accuracy of adjust ment are the points sought for in their con struction. Every part of the room is filled with tools of wonderful ingenuity. This may be a cheap watch, but, as far as the fac tory is concerned, the tools must be the same as in any first-class watch factory. The Waterbury may have few parts, but it takes five hundred operations to make a single watch. The only difference between this watch and the most costly is the fewer parts, less material, and different ar rangement of the parts. Accurate re cords aro kept by a simple system of book-keeping of every block of metal given out and every piece of finished work brought back. Each workman and woman must return just as many as he receives, including the broken or injured pieces, or make up the loss. When the work is done the finished parts go to the material room to be stored in quantities till wanted for the assembly department. The finishing, the final putting to gether of the parts, and making the watches is all done in the spacious room at the top of the building. Here are the fitters who take the different parts of the train work and the springs and put them together. Here is the grand test of the whole art. If these quarts and pints of parts will not go together with out difficulty the whole factory is a failure, and a cheap watch Is an impossibility. They do so go together, not absolutely without any fitting whatever, but so nearly so that it may be practically said that watches can be made every time without mistake and every watch will be a good one. The works are then put in the case and we have a fin ished watch. It can be wound up and will go fairly well at once. However, this is not enough. They must be regulated and thor oughly tested before they leave the factory. For this purpose large trays, each holding 276 watches are prepared. The watches are wound up and put in the tray and left to run for twenty-five hours. These trays are supported on pivots that enable them to swing or turn completely over. First the tray filled with watches all in motion is placed in one position, say upright. It rests there for a day and an hour. Then the watches are all wound again and the tray is turned up-side- down. At the end of the next twenty-five hours the tray is turned at an angle of forty-five degrees. Six days pass and in that time every watch has been for a day in a differ ent position. If any one or more watches stop they are taken out and sent to the inspectors to bo examined to see what is the matter. If the watch stands the six day’s test it is regarded as a good watch, reody-for sale, and it goes to New York and a market. The accompanying picture shows the manner of testing the watches in the assembly room. Here is a watch factory costing half a million and giving employ ment to three hundred people. What is the outcome of it? Six hundred watches every working day in year. One watch a minute and every one a reliable time-piece, good for ten years’ use, and that can be bought at retail for three dollars and fifty cents. The company does not sell single watches, as the dealers all over the country keep them on hand. The company does what has never been done before—it sells watches by the gross. Six hundred watches aday is a good many. You would imagine the whole country sup plied by this time. By no means. This is the farmer’s watch, the miner’s watch, the laborer’s watch, the boy’s watch, the school girl's watch. Tho majority of these never owned a watch before. At the jeweler’s it may be found neatly packed in a satin-lined box, finished ready for immediate use. With it comes a book of advice concerning the watch, and all at a price that puts a good time-piece in every pocket in the land. The luxuries of tho rich have come to the poor. Perhaps after all that is not it. The necessities of the times have make watches essential to business, in school, at home, and in society. The Waterbury watch is the people’s time-piece, at once a trusty friend and monitor.—The Century, July 1882. From an acorn weighing only a few grains a tree will grow, lor a hundred years or more, not only throwing off many pounds of leaves every year, but itself weighing several tons. If an orange twig is put in a large box of earth and that earth weighed, when the twig becomes a tree bearing lus cious fruit, there will be very near the same quantity of earth. From careful experi ments made by different scientific men, it is an ascertained fact that a very large part of the growth of a tree is derived from the sun, TKSTING 276 WATCHI8. from the air and from the water, and a very little from the earth; and, notably, all vege tation becomes sickly, unless it is freely ex posed to sunshine. Wood and coal are but condensed sunshine.