genteel white face shows off four fanciful repeats of a fruit-and-foliage motif drawn in black. These patterns ring the dial of Roman numeral hours and Arabic seconds, where three blued-steel hands point unerringly to the correct time. The Watch, as it soon came to be known, embodied the essence of elegance and exactitude.
Harrison loved it, and said so more clearly than he ever expressed another thought: “I think I may make bold to say, that there is neither any other Mechanical or Mathematical thing in the World that is more beautiful or curious in texture than this my watch or Timekeeper for the Longitude . . . and I heartily thank Almighty God that I have lived so long, as in some measure to complete it.”
Inside this marvel, the parts look even lovelier than the face. Just under the silver case, a pierced and engraved plate protects the works behind a forest of flutings and flourishes. The designs serve no functional purpose other than to dazzle the beholder. A bold signature near the plate’s perimeter reads “John Harrison & Son A.D. 1759.” And under the plate, among the spinning wheels, diamonds and rubies do battle against friction. These tiny jewels, exquisitely cut, take over the work that was relegated to antifriction wheels and mechanical grasshoppers in all of Harrison’s big clocks.
How he came to master the jeweling of his Watch remains one of the most tantalizing secrets of H-4. Harrison’s description of the watch simply states that “The pallets are diamonds.” No explanation follows as to why he chose this material, or by what technique he shaped the gems into their crucial configuration. Even during the years when the Watch was dissected and inspected by committees of watchmakers and astronomers as it went through the mill of repeated trials, no recorded question or discussion came up regarding the diamond parts.
Lying in state now in an exhibit case at London’s National Maritime Museum, H-4 draws millions of visitors a year. Most tourists approach the Watch after having passed the cases containing H-1, H-2, and H-3. Adults and youngsters alike stand mesmerized before the big sea clocks. They move their heads to follow the swinging balances, which rock like metronomes on H-1 and H-2. They breathe in time to the regular rhythm of the ticking, and they gasp when startled by the sudden, sporadic spinning of the single-blade fan that protrudes from the bottom of H-2.
But H-4 stops them cold. It purports to be the end of some orderly progression of thought and effort, yet it constitutes a complete non sequitur. What’s more, it holds still, in stark contrast to the whirring of the going clocks. Not only are its mechanisms hidden by the silver case enclosure, but the hands are frozen in time. Even the second hand lies motionless. H-4 does not run.
It could run, if curators would allow it to, but they demur, on the grounds that H-4 enjoys something of the status of a sacred relic or a priceless work of art that must be preserved for posterity. To run it would be to ruin it.
When wound up, H-4 goes for thirty hours at a time. In other words, it requires daily winding, just as the big sea clocks do. But unlike its larger predecessors, H-4 will not tolerate daily human intervention. Nay, H-4, often hailed as the most important timekeeper ever built, offers mute but eloquent testimony on this point, having suffered mistreatment at the hands of its own great popularity. As recently as fifty years ago, it lay in its original box, with the cushion and winding key. They have since been lost in the course of using H-4—transferring it from one place to another, exhibiting it, winding it, running it, cleaning it, transferring it again. In 1963, despite the sobering lesson of the lost box, H-4 visited the United States as part of an exhibition at the Naval Observatory in Washington.
Harrison’s big sea clocks, like his tower clock at Brocklesby Park, have more wherewithal to withstand regular use
Harrison loved it, and said so more clearly than he ever expressed another thought: “I think I may make bold to say, that there is neither any other Mechanical or Mathematical thing in the World that is more beautiful or curious in texture than this my watch or Timekeeper for the Longitude . . . and I heartily thank Almighty God that I have lived so long, as in some measure to complete it.”
Inside this marvel, the parts look even lovelier than the face. Just under the silver case, a pierced and engraved plate protects the works behind a forest of flutings and flourishes. The designs serve no functional purpose other than to dazzle the beholder. A bold signature near the plate’s perimeter reads “John Harrison & Son A.D. 1759.” And under the plate, among the spinning wheels, diamonds and rubies do battle against friction. These tiny jewels, exquisitely cut, take over the work that was relegated to antifriction wheels and mechanical grasshoppers in all of Harrison’s big clocks.
How he came to master the jeweling of his Watch remains one of the most tantalizing secrets of H-4. Harrison’s description of the watch simply states that “The pallets are diamonds.” No explanation follows as to why he chose this material, or by what technique he shaped the gems into their crucial configuration. Even during the years when the Watch was dissected and inspected by committees of watchmakers and astronomers as it went through the mill of repeated trials, no recorded question or discussion came up regarding the diamond parts.
Lying in state now in an exhibit case at London’s National Maritime Museum, H-4 draws millions of visitors a year. Most tourists approach the Watch after having passed the cases containing H-1, H-2, and H-3. Adults and youngsters alike stand mesmerized before the big sea clocks. They move their heads to follow the swinging balances, which rock like metronomes on H-1 and H-2. They breathe in time to the regular rhythm of the ticking, and they gasp when startled by the sudden, sporadic spinning of the single-blade fan that protrudes from the bottom of H-2.
But H-4 stops them cold. It purports to be the end of some orderly progression of thought and effort, yet it constitutes a complete non sequitur. What’s more, it holds still, in stark contrast to the whirring of the going clocks. Not only are its mechanisms hidden by the silver case enclosure, but the hands are frozen in time. Even the second hand lies motionless. H-4 does not run.
It could run, if curators would allow it to, but they demur, on the grounds that H-4 enjoys something of the status of a sacred relic or a priceless work of art that must be preserved for posterity. To run it would be to ruin it.
When wound up, H-4 goes for thirty hours at a time. In other words, it requires daily winding, just as the big sea clocks do. But unlike its larger predecessors, H-4 will not tolerate daily human intervention. Nay, H-4, often hailed as the most important timekeeper ever built, offers mute but eloquent testimony on this point, having suffered mistreatment at the hands of its own great popularity. As recently as fifty years ago, it lay in its original box, with the cushion and winding key. They have since been lost in the course of using H-4—transferring it from one place to another, exhibiting it, winding it, running it, cleaning it, transferring it again. In 1963, despite the sobering lesson of the lost box, H-4 visited the United States as part of an exhibition at the Naval Observatory in Washington.
Harrison’s big sea clocks, like his tower clock at Brocklesby Park, have more wherewithal to withstand regular use
Similar Books
