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b. March 31, 1693 and d. March 24, 1776

English inventor of the chronometer for ascertaining longitude. His fourth timekeeper was in the form of a pocket watch and was finished in 1759. He made many improvements in clocks, among them his recoil escapement, which obviated the necessity of keeping the pallets well oiled. He was the first to employ the “going ratchet,” or secondary spring, an arrangement for keeping the timepiece going at its usual rate while being wound up. He constructed a new musical scale or mechanical division of the octave, according to the proportion which the radius and the diameter of a circle have respectively to the circumference.

They be the secret springs
That make our minutes flee
On wheels more swift than eagles’ wings;
Our life’s a clock, and every gasp a breath
Breathes forth a warning grief,till time shall
strike with death.

They end when scarce begun;
And, ere we apprehend
That we begin to live, our life is done.
Man, count thy days, and if they fly too fast
For thy dull thoughts to count, count every day thy last.

—The Brevity of Human Life: Quarles

Only $ 22.00