CLOCK 



1435 



CLOCK 



to revive the ebbing fortunes of the Company. 

 He secured the formal allegiance of the Mogul 

 emperor, reorganized the army and reformed 

 the civil administration. He reentered Parlia- 

 ment in 1767. 



In 1773, after a committee investigation of 

 the affairs of the East India Company, a vote 

 of Parliament put on record that Clive. had 

 gained a fortune of 234,000 during his first 

 administration, but that he "did render great 

 and meritorious service to his country." It is 

 quite certain that none of the presents which 

 Clive had received from Indian princes were 

 bribes. ' But the shadow cast on him deeply 

 stirred his morbid temperament, and he ended 

 his own life the next year. 



CLOCK, a mechanical device for measuring 

 and indicating the time in hours, minutes and 

 seconds. From the very earliest time man 



THE MECHANISM OF A CLOCK 

 Explanation of the parts appears in the text. 



naturally desired to have some means of re- 

 cording the passage of time, and the modern 

 clock, instead of being a single invention, is 

 in reality the result of a more or less gradual 

 growth of ideas. The Indians of North Amer- 

 ica prior to the coming of the white man 

 measured time by moons, each moon measur- 

 ing the time from one new moon to the next, 

 or twenty-eight days. The hours of the day 

 were indicated by the height of the sun. An 

 appointment might be made for two men to 



meet "so many moons" hence at a certain spot, 

 at the hour when the sun had risen to the 

 height of some particular tree. Such methods, 

 though primitive, were practical, for the Indian 

 could tell the time by the sun almost as cor- 

 rectly as the modern city dweller can by his 

 clock. 



The invention of the clock must be attrib- 

 uted to the Chinese, best authorities agree, 

 at least 2,000 years before the Christian Era. 

 If such be the case, the art of clock-making 

 was long lost, for it was not known to Western 

 countries until many centuries later. In the 

 fourteenth century clocks were produced by 

 Germans, who continued to improve on their 

 first attempt, and it is probable that the per- 

 fected clock of to-day is due to the efforts 

 of German scientists. Monks in the fourteenth 

 century also played an important part in the 

 development of clocks, because their religious 

 observances demanded careful adherence to 

 a time schedule. 



Essential Parts. The necessary parts of a 

 clock are a set or train of wheels and a weight 

 or spring to set and keep them in motion. 

 There must be a face, or dial, and hands, or 

 pointers, to indicate the time. The accom- 

 panying drawing illustrates the working prin- 

 ciples. Before a clock's mechanism can be 

 set in motion it must be "wound up." That 

 means winding a chain round a barrel or 

 drum, which is marked A in the picture. The 

 weight at the end of the chain slowly falls, 

 and as it does so it causes the drum A to 

 revolve. The wheel marked B is then made to 

 turn, as it is connected to A by cogs. The 

 turning motion is passed on to the wheel C in 

 the same way. To prevent the weight from 

 falling too fast and making the wheels turn 

 too quickly there is a little device called the 

 escapement, marked D, connected with a pen- 

 dulum. This curved piece of metal has a tooth 

 at each end, which fits into cogs in the wheel C. 

 The pendulum as it swings to right and left 

 moves D up and down and releases the wheel 

 C, one cog for each swing, or tick. Instead of 

 making the clock go, as is often supposed, the 

 pendulum prevents the wheels from turning too 

 rapidly. It also acts as a regulator; shortening 

 the pendulum by means of a screw makes 

 it swing more rapidly, while lengthening it 

 makes it move more slowly. 



The second illustration shows the face of a 

 clock and the wheels which cause the hands 

 to move. Wheel F makes a complete revolu- 

 tion once every hour and carries the long, or 



