The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-01-17
EVOLUTION OF THE CLOCK.
Remarkable contrivances Used Be-
fore Our Modern Timepieces.


A primitive form of sundial probably
furnished the earliest systematic meth
cd of measuring time, says the London
Electrical Age. Instruments for mark
ing the lapse of time are found in both
the Bible and Homer. The Chinese
made use of gnomons probably fifteen
centuries before Christ. There were
many kinds of sundials employed by
the Greeks and other nations The Ro-
mans used obelisks, to which good
gnomons were applied. Both the Ro-
mans and Greeks employed men and
women to announce the hours, as indi-
Gated by the public gnomons.- There
was ring-dial in the large ship of
Hero. Vitruvius describes the hodo-
meter. in use by Grecian navigators,
which was constructed with wheels,
and seems to have been the forerunner
of the modern clock. But he does it
so scantily that it seems probable 1T
was not long in popular favor AS sun
diais were of no use at night or in
cloudy weather, the need of something
better gave the ancients the water
clock. 1t has been proved that Chal-
deans and Egyptians made use of
these. The clepsydra. is perhaps the
earliest form of water clock The prin-
ciple of this instrument was very sim
pie. The water issued drop by drop
through a small orifice, falling into a
receiver in which a light floating body
marked the height of the water as it
rose. Later the time was marked by
dial with a hand governed by a float
Centuries after this some very ingen-
ious water clocks were made by the
monks of Jerusalem.
The Egyptians, the Persians and the
Aztecs of America reckoned their day
TO begin from sunrise, and divided it
into four intervals, determined by the
rising and setting of the sun. and its
passage over the meridian. Our own
uniform hours of sixty minutes each
could scarcely have come into use until
something like the wheel clock was in
wanted. The ancient sundial represent
ed hours of a length varying with the
seasons, and the water clock was adj
justed to furnish hours of fifty to sew
enty minutes each, to suit the changing
length of day and night. Hour glasses,
originally called clepsamnia, were
notifications of a form of clepsydra.
sand taking the place of water. Alfred
the Greats candle clock was made in
this manner. He procured seventy-two
pennyweights of wax, which was made
into six candles, each twelve inches
lOiS, Will lie DIVISIONS distinctly
marked. These lit one after the other
lasted twenty-four hours. They were
tended by the kings chaplains. In or
der to protect the candles from the
wind, Alfred finally fashioned the first
lanthorn
Some say that Archimedes made the
first wheel clock as early as 200 B. @.
Others give the credit to Wallingford
who lived as late as the beginning of |
the fourteenth century. But the more
perfect water clocks were, long before !
the latter period. furnished with wheels |
SO that the only Improvement was the |
substitution of a solid body to act as !
q moving weight, instead of water IT |
= not to be wondered at that the ap |
plication of weight to clocks as a /
moving power should attract so little /
attention. as water and sand were I'M |
ioubtedly thought more convenient by
writer's. The oldest com |
olete clock moved by weights is prob |,
IDLY that sent by the sultan of Turkey
o frederick II in 1892. In the thir-