Excerpt from Annals of the Carnegie Museum, 1919, Vol. 12Peter Henlein or Hele of Nuremberg, a noted clock-maker, seems to hold the undisputed honor of inventing the watch. He was born in 1480 and died in 1542. His ingenuity in substituting a spring to take the place of the ponderous weights of the clock made the watch, or portable clock, a possibility. This first spring was simply a straight band about a pillar. In the year 1658 Hooke applied a spiral spring to the balance-wheel of the watch in the same year that Huyghens first applied the pendulum to the clock. It does not seem necessary to attempt a history of the mechanical improvements which followed, as many technical works, fully illustrated, have been published. It was some time, however, before the mechanical improvements kept pace with the perfection which was lavished upon the ornamentation of the case.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.