20

WILDBAD.

CHAPI. I.

kindly receivcd. By retaining the frugal habits of their homc, tliey were enabled to save the greater portion of tbeir earnings, wliich tliey employed again in their operations. Thus a considerable eomniercial association arose wliich was subdivided into smaller bodies, eacli of wliom took a certain district for selling their merchandise upon which no otlicr did encroach. —The principal warehouses of the Company arc at Furtwangen, Triberg, and Staig; — at the last two places alternately the balanee is struck and the accounts settled. The regulations tliey gave to themselves are lianded down only by tradition^ and in contested cases custom decides. Tliis Company has concluded eomniercial treaties in foreign countries, and acquired the right of in- digenate in tliem for those of their members who are resi- ding there.

The nianufacture of wooden clocks owes its origin to the glass-trade. A glass pedlar about the year 1655, upon returning froin his tour on the Lower Rliine, brought honie a wooden clock which he had got in exchange for otlier merchandise froin a Bohemian trader. His countrymen were astonished at the little wonder which pointed the hours with the ex- aetness of the great works affixed to their abbeys and churches. A cabinet-maker of the parish of St. Margen, and a farmer of Rödeck were the first who tried to imi- tate it. Tliey succeeded, and their example found followers. Still the liard times of the war prevented a vigorous rise of the new industry, and it was but at the beginning of the eighteentli Century tliat Simon Dilger of Schollach and Francis Ketterer of Schön wald commenced the fabrication en gros of wooden clocks. These therefore are to bc considered as the spiritual progenitors of the families of clockmakers in the Black Forest. The construction of the first clocks was very primitive; they only consisted of tlirec wlieels besides