Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-03-20

NP 0AN ~ AAS ISSHAS AAAASN = -
their dinner time had come.
The methods ofmarking time differed
according to the locality. lnpeasant dis
tricts, the laborer reckoned by the num-
Der OF burrows he could pillow. or, If it
was harvest time, by the quantity Of
corn he could reap. In towns where
some faint remnant of Roman civiliza-
! ton survived, the reckoning was kept
by watchmen. At %daybreak a soldier
started on foot, or, if the town was a
large one, on horseback, to walk
around the city. When he had gone his
round the first watch was over, and he
returned to his quarters blowingloudly
on a trumpet, when a second soldier
set out in silence to perform the second
watch. This continued uninterrupted
ly day and night, the only difference
being that after sunset there was no
trumpet blowing, and the watchmen,
instead of going round singly, went
their rounds in patches of ten or 9
dozen.
As a last instance of barbarous chro.
nometry, allusion should be made to
the method employed in monasteries.
The monks were in the habit of com.
putting time by the number of prayers
they could say, and it was from this
that the custom of wearing chaplets OF
beads arose. The task assigned to each
monk was to recite as MANY ..paters''
and caves as there were beads on his
string, and, as the number on a chap.
let was supposed to be then thirty.
three, that is, one for each year of ou1
Saviour's life, there was work for 4
good hour and a half if conscientiously
performed. As in the case of the ur-
ban Waterman, one monk was relieved
by another. and the termination of each
vigil was notified to the community
by the tollmg of the chapel bell. This
custom continues unaltered in certain
monastic establishments. In monas-
teries of a severe order there is no such
thing as a clock. The only time-keep-
ers are the shorn, becowled monks
kneeling in perpetual alteration.
TWAS the famous caliph of Bagdad,
Haroun-al-Raschid, who restored the
old water clock to Europe. In the year
SO7. he sent a very beautiful clepsydra
to ~Charlemagne, but it was looked upon
as a thing to be admired and not to be
copied after.
The reason of this was that the sa-
bier, sand-glass, had been invented in
France shortly before the accession of
Charlemagne, and the continuance was
considered handler and more simple
than the other.
The first sablier was invented by the
man who reinvented the blowing of
glass after the secret had been lost for
years. 4de was a monk of Charities
named Luitprand, and the sand glass
he made was the exact prototype Of all
those that have been made since. 1t
consisted of two pear shaped recepta-
Giles joined by their slender ends. When
the sand had all run from one end to
the other, the lower glass was turned
uppermost and kept in that position
until empty. Charlenagne caused a
monster sablier to be made with the
horal divisions marked on the outside
by thin lines ofred paint. This was the
first hour glass. 1t required to be
turned ove only once in twelve hours,
and it kept time with as much preci-
sion as the best of Dur lever clocks.
Many persons still consider the hour
glass the best time-keeper ever invent
ed. King Alfred devised a method of
computing time by means of a rush
light set in a lantern. Anything more
unsatisfactory OF expensive than this it
was impossible to imagine. One might
very well flicker for an hour and n
other flame away in ten minutes.
The first real clock was set up in 1884
during the reign OF Charles v. of
France. The maker was one Henri de
Vic, IN Arab, who had been converted
to Christianity. This clock was ymon-
ster machine, weighing five hundred
weight. 1t was put up in the round
tower Of the royal palace, now the
Palais de Justice, and attracted crowds
for several months after it was erected.
The maker received a pension of one
hundred crowns of gold for life and was
ennobled. He is the first artiticer on
whom this distinction was ever confer
red in France. From this time the
making Of large clocks for public edi-
fees was extensively carried on
throughout Europe.
But it was not until the beginning of
the sixteenth century that small clocks
were made for apartments. The first
one came from Florence in 1918 as Il
present from Julio de Medici to King
Francis /. of France.
The invention of watches had pre-
ceded by q few years that OF small
clocks. Popular tradition ascribes the
invention of watches to Peter Hele, Of
Nuremburg, i'll the year 1885,; but King
Robert, ofScotland, possessedone as far
back as 1910. German watches were
not introduced at the English court
until 1897. They cost fabulous sums of
money, and were made in fancy forms,
such as acorns, olives. walnuts and
crosses, and were also worn as pend
ants to ladies' bracelets. Claude, wife
of Francis L., of France, had one SO
small that it was set in a ring. Hugens,
of Zulichem, invented the pendulum
clock, the simplest and the most adj
mirab]e machine. The invention of the
spring pocket watch is accorded to the
Englishman Hooke in 1868, and eigh-
teen years after this the first repeating
watch was made at Amsterdam.
Since 1876 no acknowledgements have
been made in the mechanical science Of
horology. But in latter days Helesses
and Hugenseo have discovered several
methods of making clocks 90 by cleo