Important Watches, Wristwatches and C...
Geneva, Hotel Des Bergues, Apr 24, 1999
LOT 6
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 public clocks to indicate mean-time instead of solar time as was the habit until the Revolution. - In order to show solar time, public clocks had to be adjusted every day according to the equation of time. Such adjustment should not be necessary for mean time. - Mean time was shown by public clocks, so that owners of watches and clocks could be able to adjust their timekeepers without having to consult the table of the equation of time.
Notes
This text can be dated by the statement concening 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, ToiseMetrique, or Mate Metrique,
instead of choosing entirely new terms, such as Metre, Kilogramme
or Litre. 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 1795.