The weekly messenger. [volume] (St. Martinsville [i.e. St. Martinville] La.) 1886-1948, 1888-11-17
TIMEPIECES.
Evolution of Instruments for
Measuring the Flight of Time.
From the Crude Sun.dial to the
Modern Chronometer.

At recent meeting Of the Balloon
Society of Great Britain, an address was
given by Mr.. James Kendall on "The
British Watch Industry" The lecturer
stated that the sum dial of Ahaz is the
first record of a timekecpcr, that the
obelisks of the yptians were intended
as gnomons, and that the next record
of sun-dial was the hcmicycle of the
Chaldean astron omcr Berosus, $50 B. C.
The clepsydrs, or water clock, was the
next contrivance for measuring time,
used by the Chaldeans; but to
whomsoever the early discovery of time
keepers may be due, he said that clocks
were set up in churches as early as 1874,
and in the reign of Henry VI of Eng
land pension was granted to the Dean
of St. Stephens for taking charge of q
clock in Palace Yard, Westminster In
1926 Richard WallingfOri, abbot of St.
Adams, placed clock in his monastry
which showed the hours, the motion of
the sun, the changes OF the moon, the
ebb and flow of the tide, etc., and the
account of this clock is still preserved
in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. In
1910 Peter Rightfoot, a monk of Glas-
tonbury Abbey, made a clock which,
at the Reformation, was removed to
Wells Cathedral, and the original is now
to be seen at tho South Kensington
Museum. The clock for the Strass burg
Cathedral, Germany, was begun in 1852,
and finally completed in 1874 by Conra-
dus Daspodius.
The use of the pen dulum for secur-
ing accuracy of time was frat adopted
by Vincent Calico in 1913, and the an
Choir escapement for regulating it by
Dr. Hook, 1866; and he stated that
little progress was made since that time
until Mr.. Dennison, now Lord Grim
thorpe, designed the clock for the Vic
toria Tower of the English houses of
Parliament in 1854. The most remark
able episode in the construction of time
keepers is the lever escapement, invent
ed by Thomas Nudge in 1870, the last
epoch in the history of the watch. The
progress of the last fifty years in watch
making has consisted rather in the per-
lection of proportions than in the intro
duction ofnew principles, for even the
invention of winding from the pendant
instead of watch key is tardy appre-
citation of an Invention patented more
than half century ago.
At the London International Inven.
tions Exhibition of 1885, Kendall &
Dent exhibited Theological novelty of
q watch with two dials placed back to
back, with the movement between
them. On one dial was marked the old
divisions of twelve hours, and on the
other the suggested hour circle with
twenty-four divisions, and this inven-
ton attracted considerable attention
from horologists and mechanicians. Mr..
Kendall then referred to the important
uses to which timekeepers are devoted
by the use of marine chronometers to
enable the navigator to ascertain his
longitude as he travels over the sea. In
1714 the English government offered
reward OF $50. 900 for determining the
longitude to within sixty miles, $751;
900 within forty miles, and 800, 900
within thirty miles; and this reward
was secured, after thirty years of unre-
hitting labor, by John Harrison, q car
penter, of Faulty. in Yorshir,, who sue
ceeded, In 1894, in producing the pres
ent marine chronometer.