"Once on its feet, however, a well-manned American watch concern has all it can do. It need have no qualms about foreign rivalry, for no European country has ever yet been able to build up a factory system that could touch that of the United States, either in quality or quantity of output. As a result most nations have given over trying to. Our watches can be made cheaper and hence in greater numbers than those of other lands, and we now practically control the watch market. The era when a few watches were made by hand and afterward sent to a local astronomer or distant observatory to be tested out has passed. Even before the United States Naval Observatory was established the Waltham Watch Company had an observatory of its own. Now we have graduated even beyond that point and each noon the official time is telegraphed or broadcast from Arlington to all parts of the country." "We do whizz ahead, don't we?" meditated Christopher, absently twirling between his fingers a screw he had picked up from McPhearson's bench. "I should say we did," was the enthusiastic reply. "That screw, for instance! In the infancy of watchmaking it took a good factory worker a whole day to make from eight to twelve hundred screws. This seems a vast number until you recall that each watch requires from thirty to fifty of these small articles. At that rate, you see, it would not take long to use up all the screws a mechanic could turn out. Now, so marvelous has machinery become, that a single operator can tend half a dozen or more machines, every one of which can produce from four thousand to ten thousand screws a day. This gives you some idea of the proportionate increase in watch parts. For in a big country like this we have to make lots of watches to supply those constantly clamoring for them. Long ago a watch was either a toy or a luxury; but now every person you meet carries one. The price is such that he can afford to. But more than this, a watch is absolutely indispensable in our present manner of living. From morning to night we rush to crowd into our twenty-four hours everything we can possibly crowd in; and in order to do this we must keep careful track of the minutes and hours. Hence the demand for watches has multiplied almost beyond belief and there are now a great many watch factories." "What are some of them?" "I'll mention a few as nearly in the order of their founding as I can," McPhearson answered: "The E. Howard Company of Boston, organized 1850. "American Waltham Watch Company, Waltham, Massachusetts, 1859. "Elgin National Watch Company, Elgin, Illinois, 1870. "Rockford Watch Company, Rockford, Illinois, 1874. "U. S. Watch Company, Waltham, Massachusetts, 1883. "Hamilton Watch Company, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1892. "These are some of the oldest and best known firms." Christopher thought a moment. "Of course I've heard of some of them," remarked he. "The Hamilton everybody knows. It is advertised in almost every magazine."