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With a violent wrench she opened the switch again and stood holding the bar in both hands. Better so-better one life lost than a dozen. Her feet seemed bolted to the ground. She must stay and see him killed, and by her own hand.

Ah! Why had she not thought of it before?

The cross-over switch? Could she reach it in time she might save him. She snatched the key from the switch and ran with frantic speed up the line. She never knew how she opened that switch.

With moans and cries she threw herself across the line and began to run down the other side. Could she reach that switch before the car? Its roaring rang in her ears. Panting, with almost bursting bosom, she reached the switch, opened it and stood clinging to it as the car came thundering over the viaduct.

She looked up at her lover upon the car. He had seen and understood the change in the switches. His car, helpless though it was, would cross over to the down track and roll harmlessly along the level line till its force was spent. He was saved, and by her ready wit and skill. The passengers in the train were also saved.

She had saved him. Love had been her inspiration.

Great Heavens! what's that? The Express! The down express was coming!

All was in vain. He was lost. She saw him throw up his arms in despair. The very plan she had devised to save him would be his destruction. Better far to have thrown him off the siding as she had intended. Now he would meet a more dreadful death and the destruction would include scores of lives instead of a dozen.

All this flashed through her mind like lightning. She felt her knees give away beneath her and she clung to the switch in despair. She shut her eyes to hide the com ing disaster.

Hark! the whistle on the express. They had seen the imminent collision and were doing their best to avert it.

She, too, must do something. With a bound she sprang to the next switch, tore it open and stood panting and moaning beside it with the bar in her hand. She must save the train even if she buried her lover under the splintered wreck of the car.

Onward came the car, thundering over the viaduct and just ahead of the train. It turned quickly at the switch, crossed over and shot past her into the siding. He had one look at her upturned face. It was full of love and helpless misery. She was sending him to certain destruction-to save the express train.

The instant the car passed she closed the switch and sprang back again to the other switch and closed it just in time to see the express train sweep past in safety.

In an instant the nelpless car ran into the freight house with an awful splintering

crash. The express pulled up opposite the station, and in a moment a crowd of people ran shouting and frantic up the line. Some of them had seen the whole performance and knew what it meant, but for the majority of them it was a tragic mystery.

They found Lydia upon the ground by the switch, and with the keys still clutched in her hand. What had she done? What had happened to her? Nature had mer

She could not answer. cifully taken away her senses. They took her up tenderly and carried her to the station, and laid her upon a seat in the waiting room. The passengers of the two trains crowded the room and offered every aid, for in some vague manner they began to understand that she was their creditor to the value of all their lives. She had paid for their safety with costly sacrifice.

The freight train backed down to the cross-over switch and the engineers of the three trains met and began to examine the positions of the switches. A number of men also came from the express train, and among them was one who seemed in authority. He, too, examined the line carefully, and the engineers explained the matter to him and listened to his remarks with becoming deference.

The little room in the station was packed with people, idlers and others, and they could with difficulty bring him in.

"No," said one of the ladies who were trying to restore the girl. "It may be too great a shock for her. She must not see him yet."

"Make way there, gentlemen. The superintendent of the road is here."

He

The crowd moved slightly, and the superintendent advanced into the room. took off his hat and spoke quietly to the people near, and then he stooped over the unconscious girl and softly kissed her like a father.

"She saved all our lives, and I fear she thinks she paid dearly for them."

Suddenly she opened her eyes and sat up bewildered.

"Where is he? Is he much hurt? Oh! Perhaps he is--"

"Let me alone, I tell you," cried a big, bold voice in the crowd, "I must go to her.” He escaped from those who would detain him, and in a moment was beside her.

Some of the people laughed in foolish joy, others cried. The more delicate and sensible were silent, for the meeting was not for words or description.

After a slight pause the superintendent said to the young man:

"I congratulate you, sir. You were on the car?"

"Yes, sir. I was on the car and I saved myself at the last moment by jumping off. I landed on a pile of fine coal and got a rough tumble-and that was all. The car is a heap of splinters."

Then the superintendent called the young

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Then the bells rang, and the people began to disperse towards their trains. As they departed, a small creature-probably a stockholder-objected to the proceeding and remarked to the superintendent that "it was not best to give fat offices to brakemen for doing nothing."

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brating motion to be given to the bars and weights, in a similar manner to what is known as the verge or vertical escapement, but it was without the hair-spring, as this was not introduced until about 500 years afterwards. The rate of going was changed by hanging the weights in different notches in the horizontal bar; and this form of regulating was improved by subsequent makers, who cut threads on the end of the bar and tapped the weights, by which means the latter could be screwed nearer to or farther from the center, and very nice adjustment thus obtained.

Precisely," said the superintendent. The earliest clocks were large machines "But the woman did something, and if you designed to be set up in monasteries and wish to know the full measure of her splen-churches, etc., but succeeding generations did deed, go put yourself in her place.'

[From the Scientific American.]

saw them gradually made smaller and smaller, until sufficiently portable to be carried from room to room; and near the latter part of the fifteenth century were

THE WATCH-ITS INVENTION AND made so small as to be carried in the pocket,

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and hence were called by the Germans, who originated this form of timekeeper, 'pocket clocks"-a name which they still retain in the German language. They were first made in the city of Nuremberg, and being of oval shape, were sometimes called Nuremberg Animated Eggs."

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The first name that has come down to us in this connection is that of Peter Hele, who, it is claimed, some time between 1470 and 1490 (the authorities differ on this point), introduced the mainspring instead of the weight before used, without which it would seem impossible to make a watch, and he should, therefore, be considered as the first inventor of the watch.

The first artificial means of noting time was probably a rude species of sun-dial, to which succeeded the clepsydra and hourglass. The clepsydra in its simplest form The early watches were made entirely of was merely an upright cylindrical vessel steel and iron. No glasses were used until that was filled at sunrise with water, which about 1615, the cases being wholly of metal, escaped through an aperture in the bottom, and to admit of readily seeing the time, its decrease in the cylinder noting the lapse the cover of the face was sometimes perof time. The water was afterwards made forated in elegant designs. Instead of the to turn a wheel which carried an index form now universally adopted, various round a dial, and many curious automata styles of casing were employed, such as were thus operated. About the eleventh globular, octangular, cruciform, skull, cofcentury it is believed that weights were fin, acorn, pear, melon, tulip, bird, and, in substituted for the falling water, and a fact, nearly every imaginable shape that "fly" similar to that still used on the strike ingenuity could invent or caprice suggest; part of a clock is supposed to have been the and, as a consequence of this, and the fact usual means of regulating their motion, that many of those watches were provided until the introduction of the balance and with striking movements, they were so escapement, the exact date of which is not bulky that it was inconvenient to carry known. The earliest balance and escape them in the pocket, and they were hung at ment of which the actual construction has the girdle with swivels so that their faces been preserved, is one that was built by could be readily turned for observation Henry de Vick, or De Wick, a German, without being removed from their position. and set up in Paris for Charles V., in 1379. Most of the watches required winding It is supposed by some that Vick was the twice a day, and from their imperfect esinventor of the escapement there shown, capements could not be depended upon as but of this there is no evidence, and for time-keepers-a fault from which it is beaught we know it was invented and used lieved that many modern watches are not long before his time. It consisted of a wholly exempt. This irregularity of movecrown wheel, the teeth of which operated ment in the ancient watches did not depend on pallets set in a vertical shaft, carrying entirely on the poor escapements, but was at its top a cross-bar having notches to re- due partly to the varying power of the ceive hanging weights. The action of the mainspring driving the balance at differcrown wheel upon the pallets caused a vi-ent speeds, owing to the absence of the

hairspring and fusee. This last device was not introduced until about 1525, and was a very important improvement and a great necessity to the early watches before the invention of the balance or hairspring, about 1658. Instead of the chain used in modern watches as the medium between the spring and the fusee, catgut was employed, which was not superseded until about 1660, when the chain was introduced by Gunt, of Geneva.

Both clocks and watches were originally made without minute hands. Many such clocks may be seen in church towers and old houses in Europe, and some may yet be found in the possession of the descendants of the early settlers in this country. When the minute hand was first introduced, it was set on one side of the hour hand, as the second hand is now; and it was not until about 1687 that Quare placed the minute hand concentric with the other, in the manner now universally employed.

The first balance and escapement used in watches were substantially the same as that in Vick's clock, the only essential difference being that the weights were screwed on to the straight bar, instead of swinging in notches. This device retained its position as the only regulator for a watch movement for a long time; but about 1695 the cylinder escapement, in an imperfect form, was invented by Tompion, and was finally perfected by Graham in 1700.

ing to patent attorneys, if not others, as forming the basis of the interference case of Barlow vs. Quare, heard by King James II in person, March 2, 1687, who decided in favor of Quare. It seems, however, as if Barlow was really the first inventor, and that Quare was merely an improver who had succeeded in doing with one push-pin what Barlow had previously accomplished by two.

As an example of the ornamental work of that period, the following description of the identical watch made by Quare for the King, furnished by its present owner to the London Chronicle, December 11, 1832, may be interesting:

"The outer case, which is of very pure gold, is embossed with the king's head in a medallion, under which on the right is fame, in the clouds, with a trumpet at her mouth, which is held in her left hand; in her right is a wreath she is raising, as if to crown him. On the left are winged boys supporting the royal crown; under them a tower and fortifications on which a flag is flying; under all is the sea running close up to a fort, and on the sea is a ship under full sail. This case is also beautifully engraved and pierced with scroll work, ornamented with cannon, mortars, shot, flags, etc. The face is of gold with Roman letters for the is a piece of pierced work in gold upon blue steel, hours and figures for the minutes. showing the letters J. R. R. J., combined so as to form an ornamental scroll, above which is the royal crown. The box is exquisitely pierced with scroll work intermixed with birds and flowers; about the hinge is engraved a landscape with a shepherd sitting under a tree playing upon a pipe, with a dog at his feet, and houses, trees, etc., in the distance. On the back of the box is the following inscription: James II. Gloria Deo in excelsis sine pretio redimi mini mala lege ablatum bno. Regi restituitur. Within the inner circle is en

The lever escapement has several claimants, but the earliest style of this device appears to have been invented by the Abbe Hautefeuille, in 1722, and has since been improved by various inventors-Mudge, Litherland, Brequet, Roskell and Savage-graved until it assumed its present form.

The duplex escapement, in a crude state, is said to have originated with Dr. Hooke about 1658, but its present construction is believed to have been invented by Tyrer, or Dyrer, in 1767.

None of these escapements, however, would have been of much use as isochronous regulators without the balance spring introduced in 1658, which is claimed as Dr. Hooke's invention. His priority in this matter is disputed by some who claim it for Huyghens; but the weight of authority appears to be in favor of Hooke, who first showed that the vibrations of such a spring are nearly isochronous, although their lengths may be varied with the power of the main spring. The adoption of this spring marked an era in watch-making equivalent to that of the introduction of the pendulum into clocks, for without it an accurate-going watch would seem to be an impossibility. It was first made straight, but in 1660 it was improved by making it

in the form of a coil.

Shortly after this, in 1676, repeating watches were introduced. This invention, like many others relating to watches, was claimed by two inventors, and is interest

In the center

figure of Justice in the clouds, having in one hand scales and in the other a scepter with which she points to three bishops with an altar before them. On one side of the altar is the tower of London with a group of twenty-six men carrying bags, (presumed to represent money), on the other side is a view of the city of London in perspective and a group of twenty-seven men carrying similar bags, of which there are several more lying in the foreground; under all a lion and a lamb lying together.

"The watch is considerably thicker than, but otherwise not much above the common size, and every part of the engraving is beautiful and distinet. It goes accurately and is in a perfect state of preservation."

In this connection we may state that, in 1764, Mr. John Arnold presented to George III what is believed to be the smallest repeating watch ever made. It is said to have been smaller than an English silver two-penny piece (rather smaller than our silver half-dime), and only weighed 5 dwts. 74 grains, case and all-the movement itself only weighing 2 dwts. 2 grains. It was necessary to make a set of minute tools on purpose for its construction. For this watch he received a present from the King of five hundred guineas (about $2,500), and it is reported that he was afterwards offered a thousand guineas to duplicate it for the Emperor of Russia, but he refused it, so

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The next great improvement in the watch, after the invention of the hair or balance spring, was the compensation feature, and this is believed to have been first applied to watches by F. Berthoud, of Paris, who sold one with this improvement in 1776 through Pinchbeck, the London watch-maker, to George III; but the compensation effected by means of the combinations of bars of metals of different rates of expansion, as applied to time-keepers, was without doubt invented by John Harrison, of Foulby, England, who devoted himself for a long series of years-from 1728 to 1761--to the discovery of a mode of overcoming the change of rate due to the varying temperature changing the proportions of the pendulum in clocks, and the balance wheel, springs, etc., in chronomie

ters.

Huggerford, of London, had used jewels in one movement only as far back as 1660

The above is believed to be as correct an account as can be given of the principal inventions that have brought watches to their present state of perfection; but it should be stated that the authorities differ as to the names of the inventors--the same invention being claimed for different men in several instances.

We have not attempted to give any of the minor improvements, because a synopsis of these, however condensed, would fill a volume, as there are not less than four hundred and fifty United States patents relating to watches, to say nothing of foreign inventions in the same line.

[From The Galaxy.]

MAPPING UNHEALTHY HOUSES. It is quite possible that one result of the close watch which will be kept upon sickness through the sanitary officers, who are now so frequently employed in cities, will be to distinguish houses that are especially unhealthy. In one city there are, in a small neighborhood, six houses in which thirtyeight deaths have occurred, not rapidly, The compensation pendulum requires but but during a long period-say half a cenone adjustinent to maintain the center of tury. The peculiarity in the case is, that gravity at an equal distance at all times two of the houses have been entirely exfrom the axis of oscillation, but the com-empt, two others have had ten deaths each, pensation balance is subject to two variations--one owing to the expansion and contraction of the balance itself, and the other due to the varying length of the balance spring, both caused by the changes of temperature. To overcome the change in the length of the ordinary pendulum rod, Harrison invented the gridi on pendulum, but a second invention was necessary to overcome the variation in the hair spring and balance of chronometers, and this he accomplished by combining with the curb which governs the acting length of the spring a compound bar, composed of two metals of varying degrees of expansion, so that the curving of the bar by heat would move the curb, and so shorten the spring sufficient to compensate for its own increased length and the expansion of the balance. For these improvements Harrison received the award of £20,000 (nearly | $100,000) offered by the British Govern

ment.

The earliest compensation devices--of which there were several-were applied to increasing or diminishing the active length of the hair spring; but Arnold and Earnshaw invented compensation balance wheels about 1798, and the latter improved them to substantially their present form in

1802.

Jeweling of watches was patented in England May 11, 1701, by F. Facio, of Geneva, who invented a machine for drilling jewels; but it is claimed that Ignatius

and the other two nine deaths each. Of course, such results might depend on long dwelling of one family in some of the houses, and frequent changes in the tenants of the others. But this is not the fact. Different families have lived in all these houses, but no change has altered the result. That individual houses may carry a liability to disease, from which their neighbors are free, is a fact frequently observed in cities. There are, in one of our large cities, three houses standing next to each other, built alike, and probably by the same contractors, which are connected with a sewer that drains a very large area. Probably fifteen hundred houses empty their sewerage into that drain, which bas one outlet in the river. Whenever the wind blows from a certain direction at ebb tide, it blows into the open mouth of this drain and carries the sewer gases with it. Wherever there is a vent from the sewer, the odor of these gases is very perceptible at such times. The streets, then, are very offensive in the immediate neighborhood of a defective trap or a ventilator. But the worst effects are noticed in these three houses. They seem to be the main outlet from the sewer, and are filled with odors at times when the rest of the fifteen hundred houses are free. One part of the sanitary service of a city should be to map such houses; and when their character is proved, compel such changes in their drains as will prevent this cause of disease.

[From Chambers' Journal.]

SONNET TO A PAIR OF OLD BOOTS. [Written seventy years ago by a gentleman now deceased, and found among his papers.]

Ye two companions of my wintry way,

Oft have we trudged it many a tedious mile,

Through slop, and mire, and mud, and clinging clay,

And paced along with true pedestrian toil.

Now, sore against my will, we part at length,

For ye are both grown old and both worn out;
Your tough tanned bodies have resigned their
strength,
And waters pierce your soles that once were stout.

What boots it now that you were boots of yore,
So neatly shining, supple, smooth and black;
No patent lustre can your gloss restore,

No cobbler can recall your value back.

So man should fail, and all his works to boot,
Nor art nor medicine decrepitude recruit.

more healthy than the out-door air. other things being equal, when the dwelling is supplied with air from without?

To this very general law there is one exception, which it is of the highest importance to note. When the days are hot, and the nights cool, there are periods of time within each twenty-four hours, when it is safest to be in-doors, with doors and windows closed; that is to say, for the hour or two including sunrise or sunset, because about sunset the air cools, and the vapors which the heats of the day have caused to ascend far above us, condense and settle near the surface of the earth, so as to be breathed by the inhabitants; as the night grows colder, these vapors sink lower, and are within a foot or two of the earth, so they are not breathed As the sun rises these same vapors are warmed, and begin to ascend, to be breathed again, but as the POPULAR FALLACIES. air becomes warmer they are carried so far Night air and damp weather are held in above our heads as to become innocuous. great horror by multitudes of persons who Thus it is that the old citizens of Charleston, are sickly or of weak constitutions; conse- S. C., remember, that while it was considquently, by avoiding the night air, andered important to live in the country durdamp weather, and changeable weather, and weather that is considered too hot or too cold, they are kept within doors the much largest portion of their time, and, as a matter of course, continue invalids, more and more ripening for the grave every hour; the reason is, they are breathing an impure atmosphere nineteen-twentieths of their whole existence.

As nothing can wash us clean but pure water, so nothing can cleanse the blood, nothing can make health-giving blood, but the agency of pure air. So great is the tendency of the blood to become impure in consequence of waste and useless matters mixing with it as it passes through the body, that it requires a hogshead of air every hour of our lives to unload it of these impurities; but in proportion as this air is vitiated, in such proportion does it infallibly fail to relieve the blood of these impurities, and impure blood is the foundation of all disease. The great fact that those who are out of doors most, summer and winter, day and night, rain or shine, have the best health the world over, does of itself falsify the general impression that night air or any out-door air is unhealthy, compared with

in-door air at the same time.

Air is the great necessity of life; so much so, that if deprived of it for a moment, we perish; and so constant is the necessity of the blood for contact with the atmosphere, that every drop in the body is exposed to the air through the medium of the lungs every two minutes and a half of our exist

ence.

Whatever may be the impurity of the out-door air of any locality, the in-door air of that locality is still more impure, because of the dust, and decaying and odoriferous matters which are found in all dwellings. Besides, how can in-door air be

ing the summer, the common observation of the people originated the custom of riding into town, not in the cool of the evening or of the morning, but in the middle of the day. They did not understand the philosophy, but they observed the fact that those who came to the city at mid-day remained well, while those who did so early or late suffered from it.

The

All strangers at Rome are cautioned not to cross the Pontine marshes after the heat of the day is over. Sixteen of a ship's crew, touching at one of the West India Islands, slept on shore several nights, and thirteen of them died of yellow fever in a few days, while of two hundred and eighty, who were freely ashore during the day, not a single case of illness occurred. marshes above named are crossed in six or eight hours, and many travelers who do it in the night are attacked with mortal fevers. This does, at first sight, seem to indicate that night air is unwholesome, at least in the locality of virulent malarias,. but there is no direct proof that the air about sunrise and sunset is not that which is productive of the mischief.

For the sake of eliciting the observations of intelligent men, we present our theory on this subject.

A person might cross these marshes with impunity, who would set out on his journey an hour or two after sundown, and finish it an hour or two after sun-up, especially if he began that journey on a hearty meal, because, in this way, he would be traveling in the cool of the night, which coolness keeps the malaria so near the surface of the earth as to prevent its being breathed to a hurtful extent.

But if it is deadly to sleep out of doors all night in a malarial locality, would it be necessarily fatal to sleep in a house in such

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