Читать книгу The Modern Clock. A Study of Time Keeping Mechanism; Its Construction, Regulation and Repair онлайн

4 страница из 100

We are confident that this would be also the case with many another American youth if he could find some one to patiently instruct him in the few indispensable facts which lie at the bottom of so much that is mysterious and from which he now turns in disgust. The object of these articles is to explain to the apprentice the mysteries of pendulums, escapements, gearing of trains, and the whole technical scheme of these measurers of time, in such a way that hereafter he may be able to answer his own questions, because he will be familiar with the facts on which they depend.

Many workmen in the trade are already incompetent to teach clockwork to anybody, owing to the slighting process above referred to; and the frequent demands for a book on clocks have therefore induced the writer to undertake its compilation. Works on the subject—nominally so, at least—are in existence, but it will generally be found on examination that they are written by outsiders, not by workmen, and that they treat the subject historically, or from the standpoint of the artistic or the curious. Any information regarding the mechanical movements is fragmentary, if found in them at all, and they are better fitted for the amusement of the general public than for the youth or man who wants to know “how and why.” These facts have impelled the writer to ignore history and art in considering the subject; to treat the clock as an existing mechanism which must be understood and made to perform its functions correctly; and to consider cases merely as housings of mechanism, regardless of how beautiful, strange or commonplace those housings may be.