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In "Wrist-Watches" by Isabella de Lisle Selby (Apple Press) we find a
"Santos" watch by Cartier. In her introduction (p.6) she writes: "Although
the first portable timepiece was supposed to have been worn by Marie
Antoinette, in the eighteenth century, the first true wristwatch was not
invented for another century. Patek Phillipe is thought to have made the
first wristwatch in 1868, but some say that a Brazilian named Alberto
Santos-Dumont, who was conductiin experiments with an 'airship,' mentioned
to his friend, the watchmaker Louis-François Cartier, how inconvenient it
was to pull out his pocket watch when he was at the controls of his flying
machine; when Santos-Dumont completed his record breaking 220m/240-yd flight
in 1907, he was wearing on his wrist the first Cartier Santos-Dumont.
The images I collected, except for the watch, came from the internet. They
show his Demoiselle, a caption of his record-breaking flight (disputed with
brothers Wright, who didn't show up...but I'm not being very historically
accurate, no time for more research right now...) a hotel plaque with his
name ( at avenue des Champs Elysées). I'll try to find my book "On the Wings
of Madness" in which there is a photograph of his steep ladder cum butler.
Right now, two other interesting items came to my attention. Santos Dumont
was the first to employ the word "airport" and he invented, also, a special
kind of winding staircase ( I was reminded of Pale Fire's library in
Wordsmith, the tower, the staircase...) More anon., should the links to
Nabokov prove to be fruitful.
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