I visited the town of Morez in the year 1893. The clock industry was declining. The farmers of France seemed to prefer small clocks of hideous appearance, made in Germany and in America, to the excellent work of their own country. Probably by now the old clockmaking industry is extinct. One I purchased at that time has gone well ever since. CHAPTER IV. It is now time to give a description of the various parts of an ordinary pendulum clock. We will take the “Grandfather” clock as an example. We shall want an hour hand and a minute hand in the centre of the face, and a seconds hand to show seconds a little above them. There will be a seconds pendulum 39·14 inches long, and the centre of the face of the clock will be about seven feet above the ground, so as to give practically about five feet of fall for the weight. [Illustration: FIG. 45.] In the first place, we have to consider the axle which carries the minute hand, and which turns round once in each hour. This is usually made of a piece of steel about one-sixth of an inch in diameter. Clockmakers usually call an axle an “arbor,” or “tree,” whence our word axletree. This “arbor” is turned in the lathe, so as to have pivots on each end, fitted into holes in the clock plates, that is to say, the flat pieces of brass that serve as the body of the clock. The adjoining diagram shows _S T_ the clock faces, and _C_, the arbor of the minute hand. Inasmuch as the seconds hand is to turn round sixty times while the minute hand turns round once, it is obvious that the arbor of the minute hand must be connected to the arbor of the seconds hand by a train of cogwheels so arranged as to multiply by sixty. This of course involves us in having large and small cogwheels. [Illustration: FIG. 46.] The small cogwheels usually have eight teeth, and are for convenience of manufacture, as also to stand prolonged wear, cut out of the solid steel of the arbor. They are nicely polished. The easiest pair of wheels to use will be two pinions of eight teeth, or “leaves,” as they are called, and two cogwheels, one of sixty-four teeth, the other of sixty teeth. It is then clear that if the arbor _A_ turns round once in an hour, the arbor _B_ will turn round eight times in an hour, and _C_ will turn round (60 × 64)/(8 × 8) = 60 times in an hour, or once in each minute. By having 480 teeth on the cogwheel on _A_, you could, of course, make _C_ go round once in a minute without the use of any intermediate arbor such as _B_. [Illustration: FIG. 47.]