Omaha daily bee., 1911-04-12
ODD WAYS OF TELLING TIME
Omaha Incident Coupled With QuRint
Means Of Timc TeIling In
Turkey,

A watch or a clock was about as rare In |
Turkey fifty years ago as an aeroplane Is 4
in America nov. Even today In the !
smaller cities and villages a timepiece In !
the house Is convenience and luxury |
INDUCED in by few Of the wealthy class. /
Nature Is the clock Of that land. clock |
which never stops or fails to serve its
purpose The crow OF the cock is the
simplest. the sun the most dependable and
convenient and the cats eve the most
difficult and to occidentals the most humer-
Gus Of timepieces.
The cock crows regularly morning fore
noon noon. afternoon and evening, and
serves the purpose OF the striking clock
Of a beIfry tower. Sometimes cock crows
at irregular periods. owe unto him! for
superstition demands that his head be
chopped off-a demand which is compiled
with without delay, for to tolerate an Ill
Growing cock is to bring bad luck-so the
natives believe.
II needs little experience to be able to
tell whether It be morning. noon, after
noon or near evening by merely noting the
position Of the-sun The time is more ac-
curately told by Judging the shadows cast
by the sun. which is the mode most popular
with the shepherds In the fields.
Still another method, more accurate, is
! the following; They hold their thumbs
touching each other horizontally, and ex-
tend the forefingers up perpendicularly.
Then they divide the thumb and fore
finger OF each hand into six parts, nomi-
nal hour points, one hand representing the
morning and the other the afternoon.
Where the thumbs Join being y o'clock,
the tip OF one forefinger representing 6
O'Clock in the morning and the tip Of the
] e In he az
holding the hands in the described posi-
ton toward the sun the shadow cast
by one finger upon the other will point
to the correct time, as judged by the
hours nominally marked in mind. The hour
divisions may be divided into additional
parts as the quarter hours.
To tell the time by the cats eye sounds
at first humorous, but II can be done.
The average person perhaps is not aware
that the shape Of the cats eye undergoes
changes during the day. In the morning
the pupil is normally circular, but grad
uany it narrows until noon, when only
a narrow streak is left. AS the day
progresses 1t resumes its normal shape,
becoming oval about 3 o'clock in the after
noon. In Turkey 1t is common for the
old folks to call the cat to their sides in
order to ascertain the time.
AS an Illustration OF now accurately
time can be measured by the shadow cast
by the sun can be cited a trial in the
courts of Omaha, Neb held in the first
week of January, 1911, where a man wa'
acquitted OF the charge of attempted
murder through the alibi established by
, the shadow of a church steeple cast upor
a photograph, which contained the two
accusing witnesses, who had testified
seeing the man between ? and 8 O'Clock
in the afternoon while returning from
church, after the photograph was taken.
But from the angle formed by tn,
shadow and the horizontal boards Of thu
church in the photograph Father Rigge
astronomer at Creighton university, cal
culated the time the photograph mus
have been taken and testified that thu
exact moment was during the Afternoon
at S2l:29, one hour later than the wit
nesses had testified they met the prisoner
Armenia Magazine.