HOROLOGY. 



Curious Clocks. 



Various and ingenious, as well as often highly 

 curious, have been the forms and purposes dis- 

 played in the construction of clocks, even from 

 their earlier epochs down to the present day. We 

 have already instanced some of an ancient date 

 which pointed out the motions of the sun and 

 moon, the ebb and flow of the tides, &c. Others 

 of a more fanciful description followed. The 

 famous astronomical clock of Strasburg, com- 

 pleted by Isaac Habrecht about the end of the 

 sixteenth century, deserves a prominent place in 

 our catalogue. It was renovated by a M. Schwitgue 

 in 1842, and probably suffered more or less injury 

 in the bombardment of 1870; but its original 

 movements are thus described in Morrison's 

 Itinerary: 'Before the clock stands a globe on 

 the ground, shewing the motions of the heavens, 

 stars, and planets. The heavens are carried 

 about by the first mover in twenty-four hours. 

 Saturn, by his proper motion, is carried about in 

 thirty years ; Jupiter, in twelve ; Mars, in two ; 

 the Sun, Mercury, and Venus, in one year ; and 

 the Moon in one month. In the clock itself there 

 are two tables on the right and left hand, shewing 

 the eclipses of the sun and moon from the year 

 1573 to the year 1624. The third table, in the 

 middle, is divided into three parts. In the first 

 part, the statues of Apollo and Diana shew the 

 course of the year, and the day thereof, being 

 carried about in one year ; the second part shews 

 the year of our Lord, and the equinoctial days, the 

 hours of each day, the minutes of each hour, 

 Easter-day, and all other feasts, and the Domini- 

 cal letter ; and the third part hath the geographi- 

 cal description of all Germany, and particularly of 

 Strasburg, and the names of the inventor and all 

 the workmen. In the middle frame of the clock 

 is an astrolabe, shewing the sign in which each 

 planet is every day ; and there are the statues of 

 the seven planets upon a circular plate of iron ; 

 so that every day the planet that rules the day 

 comes forth, the rest being hid within the frames, 

 till they come out, of course, at their day as the 

 sun upon Sunday ; and so for all the week. There 

 is also a terrestrial globe, which shews the quarter, 

 the half-hour, and the minutes. There is also the 

 figure of a human skull, and the statues of two 

 boys, whereof one turns the hour-glass, when the 

 clock hath struck, and the other puts forth the rod 

 in his hand at each stroke of the clock. More- 

 over, there are the statues of Spring, Summer, 

 Autumn, and Winter, and many observations of 

 the moon. In the upper part of the clock are 

 four old men's statues, which strike the quarters 

 of the hour. The statue of Death comes out at 

 each quarter to strike, but is driven back by the 

 statue of Christ, with a spear in his hand, for three 

 quarters ; but in the fourth quarter that of Christ 

 goes back, and that of Death strikes the hour 

 with a bone in his hand, and then the chimes 

 sound. On the top of the clock is an image of a 

 cock, which twice in the day crows aloud, and 

 claps his wings. Besides, this clock is decked 

 with many rare pictures ; and being on the inside 

 of the church, carries another frame to the outside 

 of the walls, whereon the hours of the sun, the 

 courses of the moon, the length of the day, and 

 such other things, are set out with great art.' 

 Other ancient clocks displayed processions of 



saints, with obeisance to the Virgin and Child, 

 &c. ; and scarcely a town of any importance was 

 without some ^curiosity of this sort peculiar to 

 itself. Many curious specimens were invented in 

 the seventeenth century ; amongst which were a 

 variety measuring time, or at least moved, by balls 

 running down inclined planes, swallowed up by, 

 and traversing the bodies of, brazen serpents, or 

 descending in metallic grooves, to be again thrown 

 up by Archimedean screws : some were made to go 

 by their own weight, descending inclined planes, 

 and thus avoiding the casualties to which main- 

 springs and weight-lines are liable; others, by 

 means of springs, were even made to ascend such 

 planes. One clock was simply and ingeniously 

 hung like a lamp from the ceiling, and was kept 

 going by its own descent, the winding up consist- 

 ing merely in pushing it again towards the ceiling. 

 In another, the dial formed the brim of a plate, 

 filled with water, in which swam a tortoise, turn- 

 ing marvellously with the hour, and ever pointing 

 towards it by magnetic attraction, as every one 

 would now readily conceive ; and this favourite 

 idea was varied by many other simple contrivances. 

 The improvements above described in the 

 escapement and the pendulum bring the mechani- 

 cal perfection of the clock, as a time-keeping in- 

 strument, to the point which it has attained at the 

 present day. But the art of horology would be 

 incomplete unless there were some standard, inde- 

 pendent of individual mechanical contrivances, to 

 which all may be referred, and by which the 

 errors of each which must exist in the most per- 

 fect human contrivances may be corrected. The 

 movements of the heavenly bodies are still, as of 

 old, the only standard for a general measurement 

 of time, affording as they do marks of unvarying 

 certainty. These marks or signals can, however, 

 only be accurately read by persons furnished with 

 the proper apparatus, and instructed sufficiently in 

 its use. This is done in observatories, and there 

 are in most parts of this country now sufficient 

 opportunities of setting clocks by a communica- 

 tion more or less direct with these establishments. 

 For the more ready transmission of correct time 

 to the public, there is at Greenwich Observatory, 

 as well as some others, a ball which is dropped by 

 means of electricity precisely at one o'clock. 

 Within the last few years, however, there has 

 been invented a most ingenious device by which 

 public clocks in a town can be kept at every 

 instant in perfect agreement with the mean-time 

 clock in the observatory. This is effected by an 

 electric connection, and a modification of Bain's 

 electric pendulum, invented by Mr R. L. Jones of 

 Chester. 



In the electric clock or pendulum invented by 

 Mr Bain, about 1844, electricity, or rather electro- 

 magnetism, was the moving power. The clock 

 consisted of the pendulum and two or three small 

 wheels connecting its oscillations with the motion 

 of the hands. There were neither weights nor 

 spring, and nothing to wind up. The bob of the 

 pendulum, in oscillating, was made alternately to 

 break and remake an electric circuit which con- 

 verted it, from time to time, into a temporary 

 magnet ; and thus the attraction and repulsion ot 

 two permanent magnets, one on each side, kept 

 up its motion. Clocks, however, moved directly by 

 electricity were found unsatisfactory ; and a modi- 

 fication was introduced about 1851, in which the 



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