Part 5

This spring has three things to do. It must send the "short hand," or hour hand, around the dial or face of the watch, once in twelve hours; it must send the "long hand," or minute hand, around once an hour; and it must also send the little "second hand" around its own tiny circle once a minute. To do this work requires four wheels. The first or main wheel is connected with the winding arrangements, and sets in motion the second, or center wheel, so called because it is usually in the center of the watch. This center wheel revolves once an hour and turns the minute hand. By a skillful arrangement of cogs it also moves the hour hand around the dial once in twelve hours. The center wheel moves the third wheel. The chief business of the third wheel is to make the fourth turn in the same direction as the center wheel. The fourth wheel revolves once a minute, and with it turns the tiny second hand.

Suppose that a watch has been made with only the main spring, the four wheels, and the three hands, what would happen when it was wound? You can tell very easily by winding up a mechanical mouse or a train of cars or any other toy that goes by a spring. It will go fast at first, then more and more slowly, then it will stop. This sort of motion might do for a mouse, but it would not answer for a watch. A watch must move with steadiness and regularity. To bring this about, there is a fifth wheel. Its fifteen teeth are shaped like hooks, and it has seven accompaniments, the balance wheel, the hair spring, and five others. This wheel, together with its accompaniments, is able to stop the motion of the watch five times a second and start it again so quickly that we do not realize its having been stopped at all. A tiny arm holds the wheel firmly, and then lets it escape. Therefore, the fifth wheel and its accompaniments are called the "escapement." This catching and letting go is what makes the ticking.

A watch made in this way would run very well until a hot day or a cold day came; then there would be trouble. Heat makes metals expand and makes springs less elastic. Therefore in a hot day the watch would go more slowly and so lose time; while in a cold day it would go too fast and would gain time. This fault is corrected by the balance, a wheel whose rim is not one circle, but two half-circles, and so cunningly made that the hotter this rim grows, the smaller its diameter becomes. In the rim of the wheel are tiny holes into which screws may be screwed. By adding screws or taking some away, or changing the position of some of them, the movement of the watch can be made to go faster or slower.

All this would be difficult enough to manage if a watch was as large as a cart wheel, with wheels a foot in diameter; but it does seem a marvel how so many kinds of wheels and screws and springs, one hundred and fifty in all, can be put into a case sometimes not more than an inch in diameter, and can find room to work; and it is quite as much of a marvel how they can be manufactured and handled.

Remembering how accurate every piece must be, it is no wonder that in Switzerland, where all this work used to be done by hand, a boy had to go to a "watch school" for fourteen years before he was considered able to make a really fine watch. He began at the beginning and was taught to make, first, wooden handles for his tools, then the tools themselves, such as files, screw drivers, etc. His next work was to make wooden watchcases as large as dinner-plates. After this, he was given the frame to which the various wheels of a watch are fastened and was taught how and where to drill the holes for wheels and screws. After lessons in making the finer tools to be used, he was allowed to make a watch frame. All this took several years, for he had to do the same work over and over until his teachers were satisfied with it. Then he was promoted to the second room. Here he learned to adjust the stem-winding parts, to do fine cutting and filing, and to make watches that would strike the hour and even the minute. Room three was called the "train room," because the wheels of a watch are spoken of as "the train." The model watch in this room was as large as a saucer. The young man had to study every detail of this, and also to learn the use of a delicate little machine doing such fine work that it could cut twenty-four hundred tiny cogs on one of the little wheels of a watch. In the fourth room he learned to make the escapement wheel and some other parts; and he had to make them, not merely passably, but excellently. In the fifth and last room, he must do the careful, patient work that makes a watch go perfectly. There are special little curves that must be given to the hair spring; and the screws on the balance wheel must be carefully adjusted. If the watch ran faster when it was lying down than when it was hanging up, he learned that certain ones of the bearings were too coarse and must be made finer. In short, he must be able to make a watch that, whether hanging up or lying down, and whether the weather was hot or cold, would not vary from correct time more than two and a half seconds a day at the most. Then, and not till then, was the student regarded as a first-class watchmaker.

The graduate of such a school knew how to make a whole watch, but he usually limited his work to some one part. Every part of a watch was made expressly for that watch, but sometimes a hundred different persons worked on it. The very best of the Swiss watches were exceedingly good; the poorest were very bad, and much worse to own than a poor American watch because it costs more to repair a Swiss watch than an American watch.

[Illustration: _Courtesy Waltham Watch Co._

WHERE WATCHES ARE MADE

Once a single man made a whole watch by hand. Now one watch may be the product of a hundred hands, each man doing his particular part.]

Even though in America the parts of watches are made by machinery, an apprentice has to undergo just as careful and just as extended training here as in Switzerland. A poor watch is worse than none at all, and careless work would not be tolerated in any watch factory. Of late even Switzerland has been importing American machinery in order to compete with the United States. These machines do such careful, minute, intricate work that, as you stand and watch them, you feel as if they must know what they are about. One of them takes the frame,--that is, the plates to which the wheels are fastened,--makes it of the proper thinness, cuts the necessary holes in it, and passes it over to the next machine, which is reaching out for it. The feeder gives the first machine another plate; and so the work goes on down a whole line of machines. At length the plate is taken in hand by a machine, or rather a group of machines, which can do almost anything. Before they let it go, they actually perform one hundred and forty-two different operations, each bringing it nearer completion. These machines are automatic, but nevertheless they must be constantly watched by expert machinists to keep them in order and make sure of their turning out perfect work.

While one line of machines has been perfecting the plate, others have been at work on screws and wheels and springs. As many of these as are needed for one watch are put into a little division of a tray and carried to another room for its jewels and the rest of its outfit. The jewels, which are pieces of rubies, sapphires, garnets, or even diamonds, are very valuable to a watch. When you know that the little wheels are in constant motion, and that the balance wheel, for instance, vibrates eighteen thousand times an hour, it is plain that a vast amount of wear comes upon the spot where the pivots of these wheels rest. No metal can be made smooth enough to prevent friction, and there is no metal hard enough to prevent wear. The "jewels" are smoother and harder. They are sawed into slabs so thin that fifty of them piled up would measure only an inch. These are stuck to blocks to be polished, cut into disks flat on one side but with a little depression on the other to receive oil, bored through the center, and placed wherever the wear is greatest--provided the purchaser is willing to pay for them. A "full-jeweled" watch contains twenty-three jewels; that is, in twenty-three of the places where the most severe wear comes, or where friction might prevent the watch from going with perfect smoothness, there will be practically no wear and no friction. A low-priced watch contains only seven jewels, but if you want a watch to last, it pays to buy one that is full-jeweled.

And now these plates and wheels and screws are to be put together, or "assembled," as this work is called. This is a simple matter just as soon as one has learned where the different parts belong, for they are made by machinery and are sure to fit. After the assembling comes the adjusting of the balance wheel and the hair spring. There is nothing simple about this work, for the tiny screws with the large heads must be put into the rim of the balance wheel with the utmost care, or else all the other work will be useless, and the watch will not be a perfect time keeper; that is, one that neither loses nor gains more than thirty seconds a month.

It is said that the earliest watches made in Europe cost fifteen hundred dollars and took a year to make. There has always been a demand for a cheap pocket timepiece, and of late this demand has been satisfied by the manufacture of the "dollar watch." Properly speaking, this is not a watch at all, but a small spring clock. It has no jewels, and its parts are stamped out of sheets of brass or steel by machinery. The hair springs are made in coils of eight and then broken apart; and the main springs are made by the mile. Twenty holes are drilled at a time, and the factory in which "dollar watches" were first manufactured is now able to turn out fifteen thousand a day.

IX

THE MAKING OF SHOES

Did you ever stop to think how many different qualities you expect in a shoe? You want the sole to be hard and firm so as to protect your feet in rough walking; and also soft and yielding so as to feel springy and not board-like. You want the upper leather to keep the cold air from coming in; and also porous enough to let the perspiration out. Your feet are not exactly like those of any one else; and yet you expect to find at any shoe store a comfortable shoe ready-made. You expect that shoe to come close to your foot, and yet allow you to move it with perfect freedom. You expect all these good qualities, and what is more remarkable, it does not seem difficult for most people to get them. There is an old saying, "To him who wears shoes, the whole earth is covered with leather"; and although many different materials have been tried in shoemaking, leather is the only one that has proved satisfactory, for the sole of the shoe at least. Of late, however, rubber and rubber combinations and felts and felt combinations have been used.

Most hides of which soles are made come from the large beef packing-houses or from South America. Goatskins come from Africa and India. The greater part of a hide is made up of a sort of gelatine. This easily spoils, and therefore it has to be "tanned"; that is, soaked in tannin and water. When a man set out to build a tannery, he used to go into the woods where he could be sure of enough oak trees to supply him for many years with the bark from which tannin is made; but it has been found that the bark of several other kinds of trees, such as larch, chestnut, spruce, pine, and hemlock, will tan as well as that of oak. Tannin is now prepared in the forest and brought to the tanners, who put their tanneries where they please, usually near some large city. The hides are first soaked in water, and every

## particle of flesh is scraped away. They are laid in heaps for a while,

then hung in a warm room till the hair loosens and can be easily removed, then soaked in tannic extract and water. The tannin unites with the gelatine; and thus the hide becomes leather. This process requires several months. Hides are also tanned by the use of chemicals, in what is called "chrome" tanning. This process requires only a few hours, but it is expensive.

In earlier times the shoemaker used to go from house to house with his lapstone, waxed end, awl, and other tools. The farmer provided the leather, which he had tanned from the hides of his own cattle. Now, however, manufacturers can buy the soles of one merchant, the heels of another, the box toe and stiffenings of another, and so on. In the United States there are many factories which do nothing but cut soles, or rather stamp them out with dies, a hundred or more in a minute. These soles and also the less heavy inner soles go through machines that make all parts of them of a uniform thickness. The traveling shoemaker always hammered his sole leather to make it wear better; but now a moment between very heavy rollers answers the same purpose. Another machine splits the inner sole for perhaps a quarter of an inch all the way around, and thus makes a little lip to which to sew the welt. A number of layers or "lifts" of leather are cemented together for the heel, and are put under heavy pressure.

The upper parts of a shoe, the "uppers," as they are called, are the vamp or front of the shoe, the top, the tip, and (in a laced shoe) the tongue. Nearly all the upper leather that shows when a shoe is on is made from the hides of cattle, calves, goats, and sheep; but besides the parts that show there are stiffeners for the box toe and the counters to support the quarters over the heel; there are linings, and many other necessary "findings," forty-four parts in all in an ordinary shoe. Much experimenting and more thinking have gone into every one of these forty-four parts; and much remembering that shoes have harder wear than anything else in one's wardrobe. The cotton linings, for instance, must be woven in a special way in order to make them last and not "rub up" when they are wet with water or perspiration. They are bleached with the utmost care not to weaken them, and they are singed between red-hot copper plates to remove all the nap.

Then, too, a good deal of metal is used in making a shoe, not only the ornamental buckles on dress shoes and the heavy, useful buckles on storm boots, but various pieces that help to make the shoe strong and enduring. There are nails, shanks to strengthen the arch of the shoe, metal shanks to the buttons, and eyelets. Not many years ago, eyelets soon wore brassy, and then the shoe looked old and cheap. They are now enameled, or the top of them is made of celluloid in a color to match the shoe. The tags on lacings and the hooks for holding lacings are also enameled. A "box-toe gum" is used to support the box-toe stiffening. Cement covers the stitches; and many sorts of blacking are used in finishing the work. It is by no means a simple operation to make a pair of shoes.

At a busy shoe factory it is always "tag day," for when an order is received, the first step in filling it is to make out a tag or form stating how the shoe is to be made up and when it is to be finished. These records are preserved, and if a customer writes, "Send me 100 pairs of shoes like those ordered October 10, 1910," the manufacturer has only to read the record in order to know exactly what is wanted.

[Illustration: _Courtesy United Shoe Mchy. Co._

THE GOODYEAR PULLING-OVER MACHINE

This machine cost $1,500,000 and five years of experiment to perfect. It shapes the forepart of the upper of a shoe over a wooden last.]

Next, the leather is selected, first grade or second grade, according to the price to be paid. The patterns for the uppers are now brought into play--and, by the way, it is no small matter to prepare the hundreds of patterns needed for a new line of shoes in all the different widths and sizes. In some factories the cutting is done by machinery; in others the "upper cutter" lays the leather on a block and cuts around the pattern with a small but very sharp knife. It needs skill and judgment to be a cutter; for a careless workman can easily waste the skins badly by not laying the patterns on to the best advantage. While this work is going on, the linings, trimmings, soles, and other parts are also being prepared, and all these many pieces now meet in the "stitching-room." At the first glance, it does not seem as if the right ones could ever come together, even though they are marked, and sometimes it does happen that a 4a vamp, for instance, is put with 5a quarters, and nobody knows the difference until the experienced eye of the foreman notices that something is wrong with the shoe. The uppers of the shoe are now stitched up, and after a careful inspection, they are sent on to the "lasting-room." The "last" of the earlier times was roughly whittled out, and it was the same for both feet; but the last of to-day is almost a work of art, so carefully is it made and polished. The shoe manufacturers jokingly declare that lasts must be changed three times a day in order to keep up with the fashions. Feet do not change in form, save when they have been distorted by badly shaped shoes; but in spite of this, people insist upon having their shoes long and narrow, or short and wide, with high heels or with low heels, with broad toes or with pointed toes, as the whim of the moment may be. It really is a big problem for the shoe manufacturers to suit people's fancies and yet give them some degree of comfort.

While the uppers are being stitched, the soles and inner soles and counters have been made ready and brought to the lasting-room. The toe stiffeners and also the counters are now cemented into their places. The inner sole is tacked to the last, and the uppers are put in place and held there by a tack at the heel. This is done by machines; but their working is simple compared with that of the machine which now takes charge of the half-made shoe. This machine puts out sturdy little pincers which seize the edge of the uppers, pull it smoothly and evenly into place, and drive a tack far enough in to keep it from slipping. Now comes the welting. A welt is a narrow strip of leather which is sewed to the lower edge of the upper all the way around the shoe except at the heel. This brings the upper, the lip of the inner sole, and the welt together. The inside of the shoe is now smooth and even, but around the outside of the sole is the ridge made by the welt and the sewing, and within the ridge a depression that must be filled up. Tarred paper or cork in a sort of cement are used for this. The shank is fastened into its place and the welt made smooth and even. The outer sole is coated with rubber cement, put into position under heavy pressure to shape it exactly like the sole of the last, and then sewed to the welt. If it was not for the welt, the outer sole would have to be sewed directly to the inner sole. The nailing and pegging of the old-fashioned shoemaker are also reproduced by the modern machine.

The shoe is still open at the heel; but now the heel parts of both sole and uppers are fastened together; the edges have been nicely trimmed, and next the heels are nailed to the shoe by another machine which does the work at a blow, leaving the nails standing out a little below the lowest lift. Another lift is forced upon these; and that is why the heel of a new shoe shows no signs of nails. The heel is trimmed, and then come the final sandpapering and blackening. The bottom of a new shoe has a peculiar soft, velvety appearance and feeling; and this is produced by rubbing it with fine emery paper fastened upon a little rubber pad. A stamping-machine marks the sole with the name of the manufacturer. Last of all, the shoe is put upon a treeing machine, where an iron foot stretches it into precisely the shape of the wooden last on which it was made.

This is the method by which large numbers of shoes are made, but there are many details which differ. Laced shoes must have tongues as well as eyelets, while buttoned shoes must have buttons and buttonholes. "Turned" shoes have no inner sole, but uppers and outer sole are sewed together wrong side out and then turned. In shoemaking, as in all other business, if a manufacturer is to succeed, he must see that there is no waste. He has of course no use for a careless cutter, who would perhaps waste large pieces of leather; but even the tiniest scraps are of value for some purpose. They can be treated with chemicals, softened by boiling, and pressed into boards or other articles or made into floor coverings. At any rate, they must be used for something. No business is small enough or large enough to endure waste.

X

IN THE COTTON MILL

If you ravel a bit of cotton cloth, you will find that it is made up of tiny threads, some going up and down, and others going from right to left. These threads are remarkably strong for their size. Look at one under a magnifying glass, in a brilliant light, and you will see that the little fibers of which it is made shine almost like glass. Examine it more closely, and you will see that it is twisted. Break it, and you will find that it does not break off sharp, but rather pulls apart, leaving many fibers standing out from both ends.