ELECTRICAL CLOCK. 233 



not be controlled by the cold usages of pride, but 

 which, like all truths, though in a still small voice, 

 speak more forcibly to the heart than errors can, and 

 serve as links in the great chain which must bind man- 

 kind in a common brotherhood. " None are all evil," 

 and the best have much to learn of the amenities of 

 life from him who yet lives in a " state of nature," or 

 rather from him whose sensualities have prevailed over 

 Iris intellectual powers, but who still preserves many 

 of the noblest instincts, to give them no higher term, 

 which other races, proud of their intelligence, have 

 thrown aside. Time and space have hitherto prevented 

 the accomplishment of this ; electricity and mechanics 

 promise to subdue both ; and we have every reason to 

 hope those powers are destined to accelerate the union 

 of the vast human family. 



Electrical power has also been employed for the pur- 

 pose of measuring time, and by its means a great number 

 of clocks can be kept in a state of uniform correctness, 

 which no other arrangement can effect. A battery being 

 united with the chief clock, which is itself connected by 

 wires with any number of clocks arranged at a distance 

 from each other, has the current continually and regu- 

 larly interrupted by the beating of the pendulum, which 

 interruption is experienced by all the clocks included 

 in the electric circuit; and, in accordance with this 

 breaking and making contact, the indicators or hands 

 move over the dial with a constantly uniform rate. 

 Instead of a battery the earth itself has supplied the 

 stream of electric fluid, with which the rate of its revo- 

 lutions has been registered with the utmost fidelity.* 



Electricity, which is now employed to register the 

 march of time, rushes far in advance of the sage who 

 walks with measured tread, watching the falling sands 

 in the hour-glass. 



* This has been most effectually accomplished "by Mr. Bain. 

 Mr. Hobson has had an electric clock, thus excited, 'in action for 

 several vears. 



