Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-05-07
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

to keep it from the accusation of being
a liar. Sometimes it is IA minutes
slow, sometimes % minutes fast. Clumsy
Old Sol can't keep pace with the stars
any better than a rookie can march
with the veterans!
While sailors can get their latitude
by observing the sun from the decks or
their ships, they can't know their lon
gitude by such observations, without
checking them with the chronometers,
which run with mechanical accuracy,
to a fraction Of second, regardless OF
the time Of year.
1t is only about two centuries since
the hour had a definite and unvarying
length. The ancientS had burning
candles, sand-gla6seS, water-clocks and
sundialS. In India the water clock, or
clepsydra, marks the ghuree and 80
ghurees mark the span from sunrise to
sunset, and as that span varies accord
Ing to Winter and Summer the ghuree
at some seasons is many minutes longer
than at other seasons.
In Italy. especially in converts, &C.
clesiastic time recognizes the day as
Is hours and minutes long, and the
night only hours and 81 minutes
and an hour of the night is only a.
minutes. Surely that arrangement
would madden dancing youth, but. it
would be comfort in case OF IN
somnia. A similar principle prevails In
Japanese time, but Orientals hire their
dancers, and who could imagine q
placid oriental afflicted with insomnia?
The clepSydra, or water clock, was
known five centuries before Christ was
born, at first showing only elapsed
time, but later becoming very ingenious
in measuring not only the time OF day.
but the month, the age Of the moon, etc.
Two centuries BIC. an inventor, IN
Alexandria, made a clepsydra which
raised or lowered a small statue whlcn
pointed to the months and hours craven
on a column. Julius Caesar invaded
Britain, SIS BIC, and found the ma
tives using a clepSydra.
* y X
A story Is recorded in India Of
father who selected bridegroom Tor
his young daughter, and on the mar
rage night he set the bride to watching
the clepsydra to note the hour tor tne
wedding. But, toward dawn, she found
that the clepsydra had stopped, like our
grandfathr'S clock, the hour had gone
by and she had missed her wedding.
She discovered the cause; a pearl from
her trousseau had dropped into the pipe
and stopped the flow Of water. So the
Observation-Disclosures wrote poem about
the lost pearl, which got no rejection
Slip--"even as you and but became
a classic through all the subsequent
centuries. Name, "Lfliwata"-which is
not a play on words. though 1t does
sound like lilywater. Happy, unmarried
bride-divorcelesS forever!
X * X
This column might have been filled
with deep lore about the development
of horology in the world, and especially
in America, but that would not have
been fair to the American Theological
Society, whose thunder should not
strike (mixed metaphor though that isl
until 10 OF the clock tomorrow morning.
There are many famous old cathe-
dral clocks: there are old London
clocks, made by George Graham 200
years ago, inventor of the "escapement"
and the "compenSating pendulum, but
why anticipate the learned experts who
are to discuss them at this meeting?
Is it not enough to have lambaSted the
clocks that rouse one at unearthly
hours, or the wrist watches no larger
than q dime, nor much more valuable
from a practical standpoint?
They used to run clocks in Paris by
pneumatic puffS from master clock
JUST as prOpaganQlSJS ITleQ 10 run IlS
war Electric clocks, run by throbbing
Juice" from a master clock, are Ia
miliar to everybody. InventNrs are now
working out radio clocks to be operated
wirelessly, by one master clock, and
even wrist watches will "go" without
winding, much as David Harum's horse
would stand Qike a wrist watch) with
cut hitching. Perhaps such automatic
wrist watches will need special regu-
lators, according to the race OF the
wearer, for how can a watch upon a
gesticulating Frenchman keep the same
pace as one upon the wrist of stoical
Dutchman? None of US wants to get
in Dutch, nor to emulate a leaptrog
lust to wind a wrist watch.
It has been a wllopper OF q temp
tation to discuss that grandfathers
clock which was too tall for the
shelf" and even to grow sentimental
over "Tick-tock. old clock. what are you
saying now?" But both have run down.
What is so dead as a clock that does
not run? A clepsydra takes pearl
to stop it--and so one has the pearl.
But an ugly face will stop clock"
and who wants that? A dead clock
stark and breathleSs-is as useless as
a sundial in rain or "paeifistic"
hourglasS lacking sand"
CCopyrishts 1929, by Paul v. Collins.l