The real usefulness of a watch is best learnt by being without one for a day or two. There are plenty of clocks about, but not always in sight; and one gradually experiences a mild irritation at having to step round the corner to find out what the hands are doing.
A truly wonderful piece of machinery is a watch--even a cheap one. An expensive, high-class article is worthy of our admiration and respect. Here is one that has been in constant use for fifty years. Twice a second its little balance-wheel revolves on its jewelled bearings. Allowing a few days for repairs, we find by calculation that the watch has made no less than three thousand million movements in the half-century! And still it goes ticking on, ready to do another fifty years' work. How beautifully tempered must be the springs and the steel faces which are constantly rubbing against jewel or metal! How perfectly cut the teeth which have engaged one another times innumerable without showing appreciable wear!
The chief value of a good watch lies in its accuracy as a time-keeper. It is, of course, easy to correct it by standard clocks in the railway stations or public buildings; but one may forget to do this, and in a week or two a loss of a few minutes may lead to one missing a train, or being late for an important engagement. Happy, therefore, is the man who, having set his watch to "London time," can rely on its not varying from accuracy a minute in a week--a feat achieved by many watches.
The old-fashioned watch was a bulky affair, protected by an outer case of ample proportions. From year to year the size has gradually diminished, until we can now purchase a reliable article no thicker than a five-shilling piece, which will not offend the most fastidious dandy by disarranging the fit of his clothes. Into the space of a small fraction of an inch is crowded all the usual mechanism, reduced to the utmost fineness. Watches have even been constructed small enough to form part of a ring or earring, without losing their time-keeping properties.
For practical purposes, however, it is advantageous to have a timepiece of as large a size as may be convenient, since the difficulties of adjustment and repair increase with decreasing proportions. The ship's chronometer, therefore, though of watch construction, is a big affair as compared with the pocket timepiece; for above all things it must be accurate.