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THE SUPERIORITY OF AMERICAN WATCHES.

The extract from the report of the judges in horology, at the Sydney International Exhibition, with the diagrams showing the comparative merit of the watches tested, given on other pages of the current issue of Scientific American, cannot fail to interest our readers. There were ten exhibitors, and the inherent and comparative merits of the various exhibits were rated under ten heads on the basis of 100 points "for the highest degree of excellence." There were British, German, French, Swiss, and American competitors; and while the scores of the nine European exhibitors footed up totals ranging from 76 to 686, their average being 389⅓, the total of the Waltham Watch Company was 981. In detail this remarkable score stood thus: Originality, 98; invention and discovery, 95; utility and quality of material, 95; skill in workmanship, 93; fitness for purpose intended, 100; adaptation to public wants, 100; economy, 100; cost, 100; finish and elegance of cases, 100; timekeeping qualities, 100. Total, 981.

The timekeeping tests were made, as the report points out, by Prof. H. C. Russell, Astronomer Royal at the Sydney Observatory; and it is especially noted that while the majority of the watches tested had been made for exhibition purposes, and specially prepared for that end, the exhibit of the American company was the ordinary and regular product of the factory, such as is finished every day. Another evidence of the superiority of the American system, as emphasized in the report, is the fact that a sixth grade Waltham watch, one of the cheapest tested, showed a better performance than many very expensive and otherwise first class watches of other makes.

The moral of the victory is happily drawn in the following editorial review of the contest and its lessons, by the Sydney Morning Herald of April 14, last:

"The report of the judges in horology, which we published on Saturday last, was a document of more than ordinary interest. The slightest glance at it will show that the judges brought no small amount of ability and industry to their task. In many other classes of exhibits judging must, to no small extent, be a matter of opinion. There is no absolute test by which one photograph, for example, or one oil painting can be decided to be superior to another. In exhibits of this kind much must be left to the taste of the critic. Watches and chronometers, on the other hand, can be submitted to the minutest tests. The care and trouble which these require are not small, but the issue is sufficiently important to warrant all the labor which the judges in horology brought to their work. Time-keepers that can be relied upon in all weathers and in all climates, and that are within reach of all classes, are a luxury of no common order, but to a large number of persons they are a necessity also. In these fast days, when everything must be done to time, it is for a variety of purposes found necessary to make accurate divisions, not merely of the days and hours, but of the minutes and seconds also. The verdict which the judges in our Exhibition have pronounced on the Waltham watches is one of which any company might be proud; but the facts on which the verdict is based are as interesting to the public at large as to the parties immediately concerned. One of the secrets of American progress lies first in the invention of machinery, and then in its application to almost all descriptions of industry. It is the bringing of machinery to every branch of watchmaking that is enabling Americans to beat the world in this as well as in many other things.

"There has been a general belief that a machine-made watch is not to be compared to one that is hand-made, and that on this account the English watch must always hold its own against the American. This belief will have to be given up, if it is not given up already. It has now been established that machinery can be used for the purposes of watchmaking with quite as much success as for those of agriculture. The Americans are showing that they can make better watches than the Swiss or the English, but, what is of equal importance, they are showing that they can make them for less money. The boast of the Yankees is that they can turn out work cheaper and better than anybody else, and that for that reason the world must take their products. It would be difficult to prove that in some departments the boast is wholly without foundation. The American mechanic is paid better than the English mechanic, and yet the work which he turns out can, as a rule, be sold for less. The reason is, not only that he works harder, but that the assistance of machinery enables him to produce the largest result by the smallest amount of labor.

"Mr. Brassey, who believes that the workmen of his own country are equal if not superior to any in the world, maintains that an English mechanic can do more work than an American mechanic. The American really does more, because the inducements to industry are greater, and because he has better machinery. The success of the Waltham Company has furnished a striking instance of this. This company has now not only well-nigh driven foreign watchmaking companies out of America, but it has shown that it can more than compete with them on their own ground. This arises partly from the fact that it can turn out the best work on a large scale, but also from the fact that the principle on which it operates enables it to do all this economically. The Waltham Company claims to have arrived at simplicity, uniformity, and precision in the manufacture of watches, and the report of our judges shows that its claim is well founded. One of its discoveries was that a simple instrument, where simplicity is possible, will cost less and be worth more than a complicated one. Another was that the making of all instruments of the same grade exactly alike, so that the part which belongs to one belongs to the whole, will not only facilitate manufacture, but will greatly economize it. A third was, that these properties of simplicity and interchangeability are the best guarantees of perfect exactitude. The success which the Americans have reached in this as well as in other branches of industry, ought to excite the gratitude rather than the jealousy of the world. Any company or nation that shows how a maximum of efficiency can be reached by a minimum of labor confers a benefit on mankind. This our American cousins have done in other spheres besides that of watchmaking. There are branches of the prosperity of the Americans that are traceable to the extent of their territory and the fertility of their soil; but the triumph of their machinery has been the result of their inventiveness and of their enterprise, and for that reason it points a moral that Australians might profitably observe."

A REMARKABLE LITTLE