560 



SCIENTIFIC RECREATIONS. 



in our sitting-rooms, on our tables, or chimney-pieces. Besides, the usual 

 apparatus employed is a very costly one, and only serves for occasional 

 representation ; it will not keep the facts constantly before the observer 

 in the manner of a clock showing the time. 



But for all who are interested in Astronomy, or in Cosmography, or 

 even for a young person who desires merely to understand the reality of 

 the earth's motion and how our earth is placed in the universe for any one 

 who deems it of use that he or she should be able to see the signs and the 

 seasons, and the days and years, and how the earth revolves, may obtain an 

 astronomical or cosmographical clock, which will tell him or her how the 

 " world wags " ; a useful as well as an ornamental timepiece. 



Now this is precisely the result which 

 the talented inventor of the astronomical 

 clock has arrived at. M. Mouret .devoted 

 a great portion of his life and all his 

 available means to the realization of his 

 great idea, and, sad to say, he died miser- 

 ably in an attic the very day before his 

 great and deserving effort brought him the 

 reward for which he had so painfully striven 

 and devoted himself to by a life of self-denial 

 and labour. 



M. Mouret communicated to his globe 

 the astronomical movement, which our 

 earth possesses, by the aid of clock-work, 

 which conveys to it, second by second, at 

 each stroke of the pendulum, the double 

 movement of rotation and progression. 

 The globe turns upon its axis in twenty- 

 four hours, and thus one can perceive, 

 without any mental effort, the rotation of 

 our planet, and the portions of the globe 

 which come under the influence of the 

 sun in rotation, just as they do actually on the earth. Not the least 

 interesting attribute of this ingenious arrangement is the fact that 

 during breakfast or dinner one can see the displacement and revolution of 

 :he earth with reference to the sun to all people in the world. Here, on 

 the meridian, all are at midday. There, on the left, near the circle which 

 defines the limit between day and night, the sun is rising and day is beginning; 

 opposite, on the right, the sun is setting and day is closing. Yonder is the 

 Pacific Ocean in full daylight, while almost every continent is in darkness 

 and the inhabitants wrapped in slumber. Now the Chinese are opening 

 their eyes, and the Asiatic and European continents will soon be illuminated 

 and awake. This is the movement of the world as it has ever been since 

 time came into its calculations. 



Fig. 633. Cosmographical clock 



