MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6
I'm that crazy! Today I wore my Palin button in Boulder, which is one of the most liberal bastions in the country. No one looked askew or said anything nasty. While my mother was in the Cheesecake Factory getting a take-out for my cousin's teenagers, my father was witness to the mega Obama rally of the day. He said maybe a dozen people showed up, all wearing blue. 
I Missed the 1st Snow on the Mountain! My friend Josie emailed a couple of photos taken this morning. They are of Sierra Blanca and the dusting of snow!
A Meteoroid is heading toward a crash with Earth.
THE CHAMBERS BOOK OF DAYS
Born: Edward V of England, 1470; Dr. John Key (Caius), founder of Caine College, Cambridge, 1510, Norwich; Dr. Nevil Maskelyne, astronomer, 1732, London; Madame Campan, biographer of Marie Antoinette, 1752, Paris; Louis Philippe, king of France, 1773, Paris; Madame Jenny Lind Goldschmidt, vocalist, 1821, Stockholm.
Died: Charles the Bald, king of France, 877; Charles X, king of France, 1836, Goritz, Styria.
Feast Day: St. Faith or Fides, virgin, and her companions, martyrs, 4th century. St. Bruno, confessor, founder of the Carthusian monks, 1101.
ANCIENT WATCHES Died: Charles the Bald, king of France, 877; Charles X, king of France, 1836, Goritz, Styria.
Feast Day: St. Faith or Fides, virgin, and her companions, martyrs, 4th century. St. Bruno, confessor, founder of the Carthusian monks, 1101.
Many inventions of the greatest value, and ultimately of the commonest use, are sometimes the most difficult to trace to their origin. It is so with clocks and watches. Neither the precise year of their invention, nor the names of their inventors, can be confidently stated. Till the close of the tenth century, no other mode of measuring time than by the sun-dial, or the hour-glass, appears to have existed; and then we first hear of a graduated mechanism adapted to the purpose, this invention being usually ascribed to the monk Gerbert, who was raised to the tiara in 999, under the name of Sylvester II. These clocks were cumbrous machines; and it is not till the fourteenth century that we hear of portable clocks. In the succeeding century, they were much more common, and were part of the necessary furniture of a better-class house. They were hung to the walls, and their movements regulated by weights and lines, like the cheap kitchen-clocks of the present day. The invention of the spiral spring as the motive power, in place of the weight and line, gave, about the middle of the fifteenth century, the first great impetus to improvement, which now went on rapidly, and resulted in the invention of the watch a time measurer that might be carried about the person.
Southern Germany appears to have been the place from whence these welcome novelties chiefly issued; and the earliest watches were known as 'Nuremberg Eggs,' a sobriquet obtained as well from the city from whence they emanated, as from their appearance. The works were enclosed in circular metal cases, and as they hung from the girdle, suggested the idea of an egg. Before the invention, or general adoption of the fusee—that is, from about 1500 to 1540 the movements were entirely of steel; then brass was adopted for the plates and pillars, the wheels and pinions only being fabricated of steel; and ultimately the pinions only were of steel. The fusee being universally adopted about 1540, no great change occurred for fifty years, during which time the silversmith seems to have assisted the watchmaker in the production of quaint cases for his works, so that they might become ornamental adjuncts to a lady's waist. Our first example (formerly in the Bernal Collection, and now in that of Lady O. Fitzgerald) tells, after an odd fashion, the classic tale of Jupiter and Ganymede. ...t appears, then, that until 1670, when the pendulum-spring was invented, the mechanism of the watch had made no advance since the days of Elizabeth. The French makers were among the first to introduce judicious improvements, particularly such as effected weight and size. Lady Fitzgerald possesses a gold enamelled watch manufactured by order of Louis XIII, as a present to our Charles I, which may rival a modern work in its smallness. It is oval; measuring about 2 inches by 1 1/2 across the face, and is an inch in thickness. The back is chased in high-relief with the figure of St. George conquering the dragon; the motto of the Garter surrounds the case, which is enriched with enamel colours. Grotesque forms for watch-cases seem to have quite gone out of fashion in the seventeenth century, with one exception; they were occasionally made in the form of a cross to hang at the girdle; and are consequently, but erroneously, sometimes called 'Abbess's watches.'
Southern Germany appears to have been the place from whence these welcome novelties chiefly issued; and the earliest watches were known as 'Nuremberg Eggs,' a sobriquet obtained as well from the city from whence they emanated, as from their appearance. The works were enclosed in circular metal cases, and as they hung from the girdle, suggested the idea of an egg. Before the invention, or general adoption of the fusee—that is, from about 1500 to 1540 the movements were entirely of steel; then brass was adopted for the plates and pillars, the wheels and pinions only being fabricated of steel; and ultimately the pinions only were of steel. The fusee being universally adopted about 1540, no great change occurred for fifty years, during which time the silversmith seems to have assisted the watchmaker in the production of quaint cases for his works, so that they might become ornamental adjuncts to a lady's waist. Our first example (formerly in the Bernal Collection, and now in that of Lady O. Fitzgerald) tells, after an odd fashion, the classic tale of Jupiter and Ganymede. ...t appears, then, that until 1670, when the pendulum-spring was invented, the mechanism of the watch had made no advance since the days of Elizabeth. The French makers were among the first to introduce judicious improvements, particularly such as effected weight and size. Lady Fitzgerald possesses a gold enamelled watch manufactured by order of Louis XIII, as a present to our Charles I, which may rival a modern work in its smallness. It is oval; measuring about 2 inches by 1 1/2 across the face, and is an inch in thickness. The back is chased in high-relief with the figure of St. George conquering the dragon; the motto of the Garter surrounds the case, which is enriched with enamel colours. Grotesque forms for watch-cases seem to have quite gone out of fashion in the seventeenth century, with one exception; they were occasionally made in the form of a cross to hang at the girdle; and are consequently, but erroneously, sometimes called 'Abbess's watches.'
Dime con quien andas y te digo quien eres.
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