CHAP. vi. 1 ELKCTRW HOROLOGY. 633 



CHAPTER VI. 



ELECTRIC HOROLOGY. 



I. ELECTRIC REGULATORS. 



THE rapidity with which electric currents are propagated, the all but 

 instantaneous manner in which they produce motions in two instru- 

 ments suitably arranged and connected by a conducting wire, have 

 suggested the idea of applying to chronometers the principle of the 

 electric telegraph. The synchronism of its motion enables us, in fact, 

 to make the hands of any number of dials fixed at points at a greater 

 or less distance from each other, move in perfect accordance, as, for 

 example, those at the different stations on a railway line. It is simply 

 necessary to put all these dials in electric communication with a 

 single regulator. This is one problem which has, in fact, been solved, 

 and the arrangements invented for the purpose have been in use a 

 long time, both on railways and in great towns whose public clocks 

 are thus regulated. 



But it is a distinct problem, which, however, like the former, has 

 been solved, to apply electricity to the motion of the regulating clock 

 itself. It is for instruments of this latter kind that the name electric 

 clocks is generally kept. Those arrangements which are simply 

 intended to transmit to clocks at a distance the motion of an ordinary 

 timekeeper, have received the name of electric regulators. 



Lastly, electricity has been required to bring into union a certain 

 number of clocks, each having its separate works and powers, so as 

 to establish the regular agreement of their independent rates. 



In these various applications, as in telegraphy, there are many 

 systems ; we must therefore be content with describing one or two of 

 the types which have been sanctioned by experience, and which will 



