CLOCKS ON LAND AND CLOCKS AT SEA
Christmas came and went, January passed, and February was well on its
way, and still Christopher did not tire of coming into the city with his
father each morning and spending the day at the store. He had found many
little ways in which he could be useful and as a result he now had
something to do to keep him from becoming bored and discontented. He
could, for example, help deliver the sorted mail to the different
departments and do various minor errands for McPhearson, toward whom he
had come to entertain a genuine affection.
In the meantime he had been every week to see the oculist and each time
had been commended for his patience and urged to be resigned to idleness
a little longer.
"You'll gain in the end if you hold off until the year is out," said the
doctor. "Remember, you have in all probability a long stretch of years
ahead of you to the very last moment of which you will need your eyes.
Therefore you cannot afford to injure them thus early in the game, for
if you do you will never be able to beg, borrow, or steal another pair.
What do a few short months amount to when weighed against a lifetime?"
It was a telling argument and immediately the lad sensed the worth of
it.
"I figure you're right, Doctor Corbin," responded he bravely. "I'll peg
away at being lazy for another spell. But don't keep me loafing any
longer than you have to, will you? You see, just lately I have begun to
be anxious to get back to my books. There are lots of things I want to
hunt up and learn."
"Blessings brighten as they vanish, eh?" smiled the physician. "Well, it
is something to have that impulse. Hold on to it; and when at last you
have your books don't forget how fortunate you are to have them."
"I sha'n't--believe me!"
Accordingly Christopher gathered together his courage and as he himself
expressed it _bucked up_ to endure a prolonged period of inactivity. "I
shall depend on you to cheer me up, Mr. McPhearson," announced he after
recounting to the sympathetic Scotchman the doctor's decision. "If it
weren't for you, I don't know what I'd do."
"Pooh! Nonsense! Non--_sense_! You'd find ways enough to amuse yourself
without the help of an old fossil like me, I guess," blustered the
clockmaker. Nevertheless it was plain to be seen the words pleased him,
for he was a kind man who enjoyed doing a service for another. Moreover,
Christopher had worn a path to his lonely heart and his boyish gladness
transformed each day into a novelty to be anticipated.
Once when Mr. Burton had remained in the city to attend a dinner at the
Lotus Club, McPhearson had persuaded his employer to allow the boy to
go home with him and remain until the function was over. Ah, what an
evening the two cronies had together that night! The Scotchman grilled
chops in his tiny kitchenette and baked macaroni too; and made ambrosial
hot chocolate. Then there were hot rolls, fancy cakes, and ice cream
that appeared as it by magic from goodness only knew where. And
afterward, when the little flat had been tidied up (a task in which
Christopher shared), McPhearson got out his flute and such wonderful old
Scotch airs as he played! "Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie Doon," "Annie
Laurie," "Mary of Argyle," "The Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee"--he knew them
all and scores of others.
There was a fire in the microscopic fireplace, there was a box of candy,
and there was plenty of fun and good talk. Later they had gone to see
the big Metropolitan Life Insurance clock and watch its shooting red and
white lights. Seldom had Christopher passed so happy an evening or one
that flew by so quickly.
When Mr. Burton came with the taxi to take him home it was almost
unbelievable it could really be eleven o'clock.
"I hope my son hasn't tired you all out, McPhearson," said the head of
the firm. "It was very kind of you to bother with him."
"It was kind of you to let him come."
[Illustration: Ah, what an evening the two cronies had together
that night. _Page_ 164.]
That was all the old man vouchsafed. He wasn't one given to talking much
about the things he cherished deeply. But more than once after the boy
had gone he recalled the picture the lad had made sitting there in the
firelight; remembered the brightness of his smile and the gayety of his
laughter. Even a flute could not furnish music as light-hearted. It was
long since anything so joyous had echoed through the dim, dingy rooms.
He wished he could fool himself into believing he was as young as he
felt that night.
"Perhaps," observed he the next day, when Christopher referred to the
evening, "your father will let you come again sometime. He may have
another dinner or a meeting of some sort that will keep him in town."
"I wish he would," exclaimed Christopher heartily.
They were sitting together at the repairing bench, the clockmaker busy
with an old chronometer.
"That's a new variety of puzzle, isn't it?" commented the boy, motioning
toward it.
"Oh, I tinker a chronometer once in a while," McPhearson answered. "I
don't get them often, though."
"What on earth are they for?"
"You don't know?" The Scotchman raised his brows with surprise.
"Not really. I associate them vaguely with the sea and ships."
"So far, so good," granted the elder man.
"But the trouble is that's as far as I can go," Christopher said.
"Bless me!" ejaculated McPhearson.
"I meant once to find out all about chronometers; but before I got
started something interrupted me and I forgot it. I wasn't much
interested in them anyhow, I'm afraid."
"And now you'd like a few points, eh?"
"Yes. I know I shall get a great deal better idea of them if you tell
me," was the reply.
"If you weren't an American and I a Scotchman, I should say you were an
Irishman," laughed his companion.
"Why?" demanded Christopher innocently.
"Because you sound as if you had kissed the Blarney Stone. Well, if you
wish to learn about chronometers you have chosen a somewhat difficult
subject. It leads pretty far, you see. However, I will do my best to
give you at least a few facts about them. In the first place the earth
actually revolves on its axis in twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes,
and four seconds. We commonly divide our day, however, into twenty-four
hours and let it go at that. But astronomers reckon more accurately.
They call our day the solar day and instead of having a clock with
twelve figures on it as we do, they use one with twenty-four."
Christopher glanced up with a smile.
"Why be so fussy about things like minutes and seconds?"
"Because sometimes such things as minutes and seconds make a great deal
of difference. You may remember that when we were talking of sundials I
told you they were not exact timekeepers."
"I do remember."
"You see, we reckon our day by two counts: one of them begins at noon
and goes on--one, two, three, four o'clock, etc.--up to midnight; the
other begins at midnight and ends at noon."
"That's simple enough. I get that all right."
"Now people didn't always do that. There were other countries that
planned their day differently. The ancient Babylonians, for instance,
began their day at sunrise; the Athenians and Jews at sunset; and the
Egyptians and Romans at midnight."
"How funny! I thought that of course it had always been done as we do
it," confessed Christopher, with frank astonishment.
"Not at all. Our present system of time-keeping has been evolved out of
the past and, like many other such heirlooms, is the result of a vast
amount of study. Centuries ago nobody knew how to reckon time or what to
reckon it by. Some computed it by the sun and had what is known as the
solar day--a span of twenty-four hours; others figured it by the moon
and got a lunar day of twenty-four hours and fifty minutes; while still
others resorted to the stars or constellations and reached a result
known as sidereal time, a day of twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes.
Now you see there is quite a bit of difference in these various
reckonings. The difference might not matter so much on land, but when
one is at sea and has to compute latitude and longitude, it matters a
vast deal."
"Oh!" A light of understanding was slowly dawning on the boy.
"Now," went on McPhearson, "apparent solar time is dependent on the
motion of the sun and is shown by the sundial; mean solar time, on the
other hand, is shown by a correct clock; and the difference between the
two--or the difference between apparent time and mean time is
technically known as the equation of time, and is set forth in a
nautical almanac published by the government."
McPhearson waited a moment.
"And that's what mariners use?"
"Yes."
"Then," hazarded Christopher after a moment's thought, "there really is
exact time and common time."
"Broadly speaking, yes," acquiesced McPhearson. "Or in other words there
is time scientifically measured and time that is measured by man-made
laws. The difference, as I told you, is of more importance to
astronomers and mariners than to anybody else; and yet the puzzle for
many centuries balked those who sought to establish a perfect system of
time-keeping. As better ships were built and adventurous persons began
to sail the ocean both for trade and conquest, captains soon discovered
the stars and the compass could not be relied upon to furnish them the
reliable information they needed in locating their position. Therefore,
about 1713 England offered a prize of L20,000 to any one who should
invent a timekeeper sufficiently accurate to enable navigators to
ascertain from it longitude at sea."
The Scotchman paused to take from his table a box of tiny brass screws
from which he selected one that was to his liking.
"Now there was living at this period John Harrison, a Yorkshire
clockmaker, who although quite a young man had made a clock with wooden
works into which he had put a gridiron pendulum--a device he had thought
out to overcome the difficulties resulting from atmospheric conditions.
This clock was so skillfully adjusted that it did not vary a second a
month. So you can see that despite the fact Harrison was not a member of
the Clockmakers' Company he was certainly qualified to be."
"And did he go after the prize money?"
"Apparently the offer tempted him. Perhaps he not only desired to win
the fortune offered but also wished the fun of solving the riddle the
government propounded. At any rate, in 1728 he came to London prepared
to present drawings of an instrument he felt certain would turn the
trick and had not his friends deterred him he would have placed these
sketches before the commission. Fortunately, however, he had excellent
advisers (among whom was honest John Graham) and they assured him he
would stand a far better chance of securing a favorable hearing should
he first construct the instrument of which he at present had nothing but
pictures. Now such counsel as this was pretty disheartening to a young
man who, fired with hope and ambition, had come all the way to London
confidently expecting to have his plan hailed with joy when he arrived.
Nevertheless Harrison was open-minded enough to accept his friends'
guidance and acting upon it he went home again and worked for seven
years on the instrument he had drawn out on paper."
"And then did he bring it to London?" was Christopher's breathless
demand.
"Yes," affirmed McPhearson. "The contrivance, however, was by no means
perfect. Still it showed sufficient promise to interest the
commissioners and lead them to give Harrison permission to go to Lisbon
on one of the king's ships; that he might correct his reckonings by
taking practical observations at sea. Moreover they also paid him L5,000
of the prize money to encourage him. This financial spur, together with
the faith it represented, stimulated the patient instrument-maker to
fashion a second timekeeper on which he spent four years of hard work.
But even this one, although better than the first, failed to meet the
demands, and he tried again, taking ten years to perfect a third. This
was smaller and as it seemed to foreshadow good results he was awarded
the gold medal annually presented by the Royal Society for the most
useful nautical discovery thus far made. Yet notwithstanding this
triumph the article he had produced did not suit him. Experience had, in
the meantime, taught him a great deal, and after more corrections and
improvements he came again before the committee and asked that the
device he now had might be given practical trial."
Christopher hitched his stool a little nearer.
"Now governments, like elephants and mastodons, move slowly, and by the
time the coveted permission was granted poor Harrison was well-nigh
seventy years old and instead of setting out on an ocean voyage for
Jamaica he was forced to surrender his place to his son, William, whom
he had trained up as one of his apprentices."
"Poor old duffer! I'll bet he was disappointed," came sympathetically
from Christopher. "Think of his having to stay at home and miss the fun
of seeing how his invention was working!"
"It was pretty tough," agreed McPhearson. "William, in the meantime,
sailed out of Portsmouth harbor and after eighteen days of voyaging the
vessel, supposed by ordinary calculation to be 13 deg. 50' west of that
port, was by Harrison's watch 15 deg. 19', whereupon the captain of the ship
immediately cried that it was worthless. If William had not been a chip
of the old block and had inherited some of his father's courage, wisdom,
and persistence, he would have lost his nerve at this crisis and allowed
himself to come home beaten. But evidently he believed in the venture he
had in hand. Perhaps, too, the thought of how disappointed his poor old
dad would be were he to return spurred him to hold on with bulldog
tenacity. So instead of being cowed by this apparent failure he insisted
that if Madeira were correctly charted on the captain's map, it would be
sighted the next day. So convincing was his prediction that the
reluctant officer at length consented to continue on his course, and
sure enough the following morning there loomed Madeira just as William
had prophesied! Having won out on this forecast, William kept on
predicting just where the other islands would be and behold, one after
another they came into sight!"
"Hurray!" cried Christopher.
"Well, after a trip of sixty-one days the _Deptford_ reached Port Royal,
and the chronometer (for that is what this new sort of watch really was)
proved to be only about nine seconds slow. Then followed the voyage
home. William Harrison had been gone five months in all--five months
which to his poor, anxious old father must have seemed five years in
length. During that entire time the chronometer had varied only one
minute and five seconds."
"Pooh! That wasn't anything to get hot over," exploded Christopher.
"And yet a variation as great as that represented an error of eighteen
miles--a big enough distance to admit of a ship being run on no end of
rocks and shoals."
"I didn't realize it amounted to so many miles," was the sober reply.
"Probably the error even in miles did not shock people of that time as
much as it would us, for they were accustomed to inaccuracies. Moreover
such a record was worlds better than anything previously known. Yet
notwithstanding this fact, the commissioners haggled over awarding the
prize money and after advancing another L5,000 insisted that William
make a second trip."
"Shucks!"
McPhearson paid no heed to the interruption.
"This time," continued he, "the undaunted young clockmaker embarked on
an English man-of-war, the _Tartar_, and sailed for the Barbados, the
chronometer gaining only forty-three seconds; and then back he came on
the _New Elizabeth_, making the round trip of one hundred fifty-six
days with only a total gain of fifty-four seconds in his father's
instrument."
"Bravo! And so old Harrison at last got his money," asserted Christopher
with a satisfied sigh.
"Not yet. You move too fast, sonny. Governments do not bestow fortunes
at your pace. Not they! This time the commissioners paid over a third
L5,000, joining with it the demand that the elder Harrison explain to a
company of experts exactly how his invention worked. In our day a man
would have protected himself with a patent before he surrendered the
requested information but the universe of the eighteenth century was
less sophisticated. Patiently Harrison told his inquisitors everything
they wanted to know and in 1765 they declared themselves satisfied with
the instrument in every detail."
"Well, I should think it was high time!" scoffed the boy.
The Scotchman smiled at his indignation.
"Oh, don't imagine yourself through with the story yet," said he, "for
even now more conditions were enjoined. Before the balance of the prize
money was paid, one of the experts was appointed to construct a
chronometer like Harrison's for the purpose not only of finding out
whether every claim he made for it was true, but also to assure the
board that other persons beside this one old man could make such an
instrument. The fulfillment of this final condition consumed three
years."
"Oh, rats! I should have told them they could keep their money--the old
grannies!" jeered his listener wrathfully.
"They had to be sure, you know."
"But poor Harrison! What was he doing in the meantime?"
"Growing to be a very old man, alas!" McPhearson answered in a saddened
voice. "It was not until 1773 that the last of the L20,000 for which he
had so valiantly struggled was given him."
"I'm thankful he got it and hadn't died."
"He died three years later--an old man of eighty-three. Nevertheless he
lived long enough to see his dream fulfilled. Sixty years of his life he
had devoted to experimenting with and perfecting his chronometer. It was
a great service to the world--a deed that influenced not only all
subsequent clockmaking but ultimately all marine enterprises. It also,
by making navigation easier, saved innumerable lives. Other scientists
followed and built on his discoveries until now, thanks to them all, the
sea is practically as safe and familiar a spot to dwell upon as is the
land. No longer are vessels at a loss to know where they are. With the
finely adjusted nautical instruments at their command, scientific books,
wireless communication, and the correct time sent out each day by radio
they have no excuse for failing to make and maintain accurate
observations."
"But poor old Harrison--I cannot help regretting he had to wait so long
for his prize money," bewailed Christopher.
"I rather think, laddie, had you asked the inventor of the chronometer
which gave him the greater satisfaction--the award the English
Government paid him or the joy derived from successfully working out the
puzzle it propounded--he would have told you that in his estimation,
when weighed the one against the other, the money counted for
nothing--nothing!"