Unpublished paper, 'On the application of glass as a substitute for metal balance springs in chronometers' by Reverend Arnold and Reverend Dent

Description

Arnold and Dent write on the importance of the balance spring in a chronometer. They suggest that replacing metal with glass in the manufacture of balance springs may reduce errors arising from the balance spring being subjected to different temperatures. The paper includes two tables showing the daily rate of a glass balance spring chronometer aboard HMS Fairy and at the Royal Observatory Greenwich [London]. Includes one figure of a glass balance spring.

Subject: Engineering / Mechanics

Received 5 May 1836. Read 12 May 1836. Communicated by Francis Beaufort.

Whilst the Royal Society declined to publish this paper in full, an abstract of the paper was published in volume 3 of Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London [later Proceedings of the Royal Society] as 'On the application of glass as a substitute for metal balance-springs in chronometers'.

An abstract of this paper was published by Arnold and Dent in the Journal of the Franklin Institute, of the State of Pennsylvania, for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts: Messrs. Arnold, Dent. 'On the application of Glass as a substitute for metal balance-springs in Chronometers.' The Journal of the Franklin Institute, of the State of Pennsylvania, for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, volume 19, number 2 (1837), p. 142.

Reference number

AP/20/3

Earliest possible date

1836

Physical description

Ink on paper

Page extent

30 pages

Format

Manuscript