William Atherton Wales of New York is credited with introducing Mr. Fowle to the Hopkins watch. No clue has come to light on what connection there was between Hopkins and Wales, who had been a partner in the large watch-importing house of Giles, Wales and Co., in New York and later a large stockholder in the United States Watch Co. of Marion, New Jersey, which had only ceased operation in 1874. A patent[23] had been issued to Fayette S. Giles of New York, the leading figure in the United States Watch Co., for an improvement in stem-winding watches. This had presumably been available to his company. In this winding mechanism a crown pinion driven by a clutch on the stem engages with a large ring gear, having 110 internal teeth, which in turn drives a gear on the barrel arbor. The author has seen no watch, except the patent model,[24] containing this device, but the pillar plate of many of the United States Watch Co. movements were cut out, apparently to receive this ring gear. The expense of cutting so many internal teeth in steel seems reason enough to explain why this patent did not become the basis for all their stem-wound models. Steel is far more difficult to cut than brass, resulting in a much greater consumption of time and cutters, both of which represent money to the manufacturer. In the patent model these ring-gear teeth have been cut by a milling cutter which did not pass through the ring and across the face of the teeth. This produced a gear somewhat resembling an internal bevel gear, one which could have only the merest contact with its mating pinion. To make a durable gear for this application it would be necessary to pass the cutter through the ring in line with the gear axis. This would require a special or, at least, radically modified gear-cutting machine with a cutter arbor shorter than the inside diameter of the gear. Into this short space the spindle bearings and means of driving the spindle would have to be crowded, along with the cutter. Hopkins faced a problem similar to this in cutting the ring gear for his watch, except that the brass gear needed for the rotary watch could be cut far more easily and quickly. This may be the link which brought Wales and the defunct United States Watch Co. into the Auburndale picture. Another plausible link between Fowle and Wales involves a patent[25] Wales received for a pulley. This, the now familiar device of interlocking conical sections so commonly used in variable speed V-belt drives, was assigned to G. E. Lincoln of Boston, Massachusetts. George E. Lincoln was treasurer of the Mammoth Vein Consolidated Coal Co. at Boston in 1865, with an office adjoining that of Fowle. In addition he boarded for many years at Auburndale,[26] and he apparently owned the buildings about to be converted into a watch factory. Thus we see that Lincoln may very well have been the one who brought Fowle and Wales together.