Important Watches, Wristwatches and C...
Geneva, Hotel Des Bergues, Apr 18, 1998
LOT 309
Antoine Louis Breguet. Autograph manuscript, circa 1793.
CHF 1,200 - 1,400
Most interesting comments by the son of the eminent Abraham Louis Breguet about the necessity for the public clocks to indicate the mean-time instead of the solar time as it was the habit until the Revolution. - In order to show the solar time, the public clocks had to be adjusted every clay according to the equation of time. Such adjustment should not be necessary for the mean time. - If the mean time was shown by the public clocks, the owners of watches and clocks, could be able to adjust their time keepers without having to consult the table of the equation of time.
Notes
This text can be dated by the statement concerning the metric
system, which according to Antoine Louis Breguet, would have
been more easily accepted by the population, if the old
measurements had been kept with the addition of the term:
" metric"; for example: "Pied Metrique", "Toise Metr ique", or
"Piste Metrique", instead of choosing entirely new terms, such
as "Metr e", "Kilogramme" or "Litr e". Also some of the terms,
mentioned by Antoine Louis Breguet, and which were in use
when the Metric System had just been adopted, were no longer
used after ] 795.