An identical watch is part of the Wilsdorf Collection, published in ?Rolex, Montres et Emaux de Genève?, page 171. Pouzait Escapement During the last quarter of the 18th century, several watchmakers tried to produce watches with dead center-seconds hands, much in favor among the scientific community and on the Chinese market. The attempt made by Moïse Pouzait featured a lever escapement associated with a large seconds-beating balance. Due to its spectacular aspect, and in spite if its inertia sensitivity, Pouzait?s escapement was much appreciated by the Chinese, before the invention by Jacot of the so-called ?Chinese duplex? escapement, enabling the production of dead center-seconds watches. In 1786 Pouzait made a model of his escapement which he presented to the Geneva Société des Arts, and which can still be seen in their collection. Pouzait. (1743-1793) In 1786 Jean Moïse Pouzait presented to the Society of Arts in Geneva a model of his lever escapement. The idea seems to derive from the pin-wheel escapement in clocks and as in the pin-wheel there was no safety action (later ones, including these two, have the safety action). There are some differences, however: Pouzait?s pallets are not just pins, they are small pin-like rectangular teeth, so in fact it is an escapement with divided lift. Pouzait, who eleven years earlier had invented the independent seconds mechanism, possibly wanted to make a simpler mechanism for dead seconds. Whatever were his motives, he was one of the first to introduce the lever escapement to the Continent.