(^212) THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS
less accurate, because they could not work with a pendulum. The
invention of the balance spring, however, made it possible to get
much closer to a regular rate, steady from hour to hour and day to
day. A good pocketwatch, jeweled and with a decent balance, could
keep time in the early eighteenth century to a minute or two a day.
For the first time it paid to add a minute hand, and even a second
hand.
These advances substantially enhanced the advantage that
horological technology gave to Europe. What had long been an
absolute monopoly of knowledge remained an effective monopoly of
performance. No one else could make these instruments or do the
kinds of work that depended on precision timekeeping. The most
important of these, politically as well as economically: finding the
longitude at sea.
nora
(Nora)
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