He soon obtained a considerable knowledge of what had been done in clocks and watches, and was able to do not only what the best professional workers had done, but to strike out entirely new lights in the clock and watch-making business.

He found out a method of diminishing friction by adding a joint to the pallets of the pendulum, whereby they were made to work in the nature of rollers of a large radius, without any sliding, as usual, upon the teeth of the wheel.

He constructed a clock on the recoiling principle, which went perfectly, and never lost a minute within fourteen years.

Sir Edmund Denison Beckett says that he invented this method in order to save himself the trouble of going so frequently to oil the escapement of a turret clock, of which he had charge; though there were other influences at work besides this.
But his most important invention, at this early period of his life, was his compensation pendulum.

Every one knows that metals expand with heat and contract by cold.