M&D ca. p 100--source?

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

Can't remember the exact page, but the little conversation between the clocks onboard 
ship--is it just before Dixon leaves St. Helena?
Reading Dava Sobel's LONGITUDE this morning I find:
Cornered, Harrison led Maskelyne into the room where he kept the clocks,
which had been his close companions for thirty years.  They were all running,
each in its own characteristic way, like a gathering of old friends in animated conversation 
(p. 136)

Though, as the passage above reveals, Sobel has a tin ear and a poor grasp of sentence 
structure, yet perhaps this little trope was inspiring of the fleshed out idea in M & D?  At 
any rate, seems a good sign that Sobel's LONGITUDE (copyright 1995) was a source.  Date 
of pub. might give some good textual scholar someday a hook on TRP's method of 
composition?

Thoughts?

john m