Now, as you remember, there was not until long after this any means of making clocks keep anything like accurate time; so, instead of improving them, people competed with each other in devising novel and ingenious forms. There could be no more desirable novelty than a clock small enough to stand upon a desk or table, or even to be carried around. Such a clock could not well be driven by weights. But Peter Henlein overcame that difficulty by using for the motive power a coiled mainspring wound up with a ratchet, just as we still do to-day. There is some dispute over attributing to Henlein the credit for this invention; but at least he did the thing, and it cannot be proved that anybody did it before him. "Every day," wrote Johannes Coeuleus, in 1511, "produces more ingenious inventions. A clever and comparatively young man—Peter Henlein—creates works that are the admiration of leading mathematicians, for, out of a little iron he constructs clocks with numerous wheels, which, without any impulse and in any position, indicate time for forty hours and strike, and which can be carried in the purse as well as in the pocket." [Illustration: THE FIRST POCKET TIME PIECE _In Shakespear's play, "As You Like It," Touchstone, the Fool, draws forth a pocket sun dial, which probably was of the "napkin ring" type._] There was, however, no invention of any such thing as we mean by the term _watch_ to-day that came complete from the mind of any one man, but the contrivance gradually grew, in shape and structure out of the small clock which could be worn at the belt or on a chain round the neck. It came to be called a _watch_ because _clock_ meant a bell that struck the hours. But many of the first watches had striking apparatus, and this circumstance added to the confusion of names. We slangily call a fat, old-fashioned watch a _turnip_; but the first watches were very much fatter and more old-fashioned, and might fairly have deserved the name. Before long, Henlein was making them oval in shape. Hence, they were called _Nuremberg eggs_. Here, then, is something which we can really consider a watch. Let us see how it compares with those that we know to-day. In the first place, being egg-shaped, it was thick and heavy—you would not like to carry it in your pocket. It had no crystal and only one hand—the hour-hand. So much for the outside. Inside, the difference was still greater. The works were made of iron and put together with pins and rivets. It was all hand-work—expert workmanship, indeed—but look at the works of your own watch and try to imagine cutting the teeth in those tiny gears, or making those delicate springs with files and hammers. As pieces of hand-workmanship, therefore, the watches made by Henlein and his followers were remarkable; but when compared with our modern watches, they were crude and clumsy affairs.