The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1872-12-12
THE CLOCK.

80 many associations OF Temory and
poetry cluster about the household
clock, with its patient tick and its
stirring strike, that the want of it
would leave a blank in our lives
One could letter spare the watch
from his pocket than the clock from
his shelf. 1t would be interesting
to inquire what has been the effect
upon modern life of the universal
distribution of clocks. No doubt it
has been an important element of
that business activity and punctual-
ity which characterize the present
age.
Notwithstanding the luxury and
refinement Of the ancients, they were
without many of the ordinary conve-
niences which we now regard as
necesaries Of life. For nearly five
hundred years, clock, to regulate
the business of the day. according to
a fixed measure of time, was thing
unknown in Rome and even in la
ter times it was only represented by
imperfect devices Originally the
Romans did not divide the day into
hours at all, but guessed at the time
from the position of the sun. After
they became acquainte with the use
of sun-dials, they divided the day,
from sunrise to sunset, into twelve
eqaul hours, but left the night to be
vaguely described according to the
degree of darkness or the position of
the stars. The famous dial still to
be seen in one of the Italian villages,
with its Cuaint inscription, 81 only
mark the sunny hours" is more than
fancifuI type of contentment. 1t
epitomizes that spirit Of elegant idle
ness and leisure which no doubt was
largely the result Of the lack of ac-
curate time-pieles, and which anti
quarlans and scholars may admire,
but few would now care to initiate.
Who could spend half day in the
bath or the barber-shop, if a faithful
clock kept sounding in his ears the
lapse Of precious time?
The principal divisions of the
night took their rise from the habits
of the camp. To persons employed
In reckless wassail, or immersed in
sleep, there was no need Of mea ur-
ing the hours of darkness; but the
sentinel OH his lonely post found the
night longer than the day, and the
period Of his relief became an epoch
III lis monotonous silence. Hence
arose the division into four watches,
which was long maintained, even in
civil life. These were afterward in
creased to eight, and finally to twelve
hours; but as the hours OF the day
were equal tweIfths of the daylight,
and those Of the night equal twelfths
OF the darkness, it followed that
their duration varied with every day
OF the year, and that all the twenty
four were of equal length only at the
equinoxes. 1t is only in calendars
OF the latest period that we find the
length Of the night aud day, through
the different months, given according
to equinoctial hours.
According to Pliny, there was no
sun-dial in Rome until eleven wears
before the war with Pyrrhus, about
400 A U. c., or nearly three hundred
years before Christ. They were
known, however, to the Greeks two
centuries earlier. The first seem to
have beeu brought from Sicily to
Rome, and Pliny complains that they
did not suit the latitude, and gave
the hours falsely. This evil w"s
diligently rectiied" by a Roman
mechanic; and the dial, in various
forms, remained the only measure of
time for a century and more. About
one hundred and sixty years before
Christ, the cIep$ydra, or ater-clock,
was introduced. This was similar
An principle to our sand-glass. The
water in a vessel was allowed gradu.
ally to escape. The first clepsy-
drae were not transparent, and
probably they could only, like our
hour-glass, mark a single division of
time by the escape of all their con-
tents. Subsequently, they were
Il % &C L. - - L.