The FRAME, usually of brass gilt, sustains both ends of each axis, and is now principally designed to fit a full-plate movement or a three-quarter-plate movement. The former is undoubtedly the more simple construction, but with considerable disadvantage in taking to pieces the watch and putting it together again when repairs are needed. The examination of the escapement in a full-plate watch, and the cleaning, or altering, or oiling which may be needed, cannot be done without taking the whole movement to pieces. The three-quarter-plate movement is not only preferable on account of its superiority in respect to solidity, and the economy of labour in its manufacture, but from its being flatter than the full-plate watch, and allowing of repairs being more easily made. The WATCH-CASE, which used to be of various materials, such as tortoiseshell, pinchbeck, or one of the precious metals, is now almost universally of gold or silver. Silver cases are invariably of the standard required by the law and stamped accordingly; gold cases vary in fineness,--some being made and stamped of 9 carat gold, but the best for wear, and as such preferred by the best makers, are of 18 carats, and are stamped as such with the hall mark, usually in three or four places,--on the bow, the pendant, and the inside of the case. Much depends upon the care with which this part of a watch is finished, for an ill-fitting case admits dust which renders frequent cleaning necessary, and prevents accurate time-keeping. After the casemaker has constructed the case it has to pass through several hands before it is completed,--for instance, it is one man's work to fit the works to the case by making the joint at the 12 o'clock and the bolt at 6 o'clock, and to supply the wheels to propel the hands; it is another's to perform the part of engine turner, and to mark the case with those curiously intricate lines whose wonderful precision cannot be secured by mere hand-work, but by a combination of mechanical and human labour; another's to finish the joints, or, as the uninitiate would perhaps call them, the hinges; and last of all the fitter of the case with springs, and polisher to give the necessary finish. In the same way has each part of the mechanism of the interior passed through a series of workmen's hands. Nearly every wheel and pinion has been separately made by men whose entire time is given to the perfecting of their several branches of labour, the subdivisions of which and their ramifications would need many lengthy chapters of description, to do them justice. The escapement is of itself a distinct department requiring a number of co-operating hands, from those which first shape the metal to the balance-maker working in brass, steel, or gold, and the final adjustment of the escapement-maker. The chain, the spring, the jewelling, the brass-work, the engraving, the gilding, have each their separate history, some of them being brought from one district and some from