1052 Transactions of the American Institute. 



figures, or twelve at the top and twelve at the bottom, and the point- 

 ers give apparent time. On the right of this dial is a tablet giving 

 the year of the world, the year of our Lord, all the movable feasts, 

 the dominical letter, Easterday, the progression of equinoxes, &c. 

 On the left is another tablet giving the solar and lunar eclipses 

 *' computed forever," one account says. Above these are movable 

 figures representing the days of the week. 



Thus, on Sunday, the sun is drawn out in a chariot and stands 

 throughout the day when he is succeeded by the moon ; which in 

 turn gives way for the chariot and horses of Mars, and so on. 

 Directly over these is an ordinary dial giving mean time. On the 

 right of this dial sits a winged boy with a tiny bell on which he 

 strikes the hours as they pass, and on the left sits a similar one with 

 an hour glass that he turns at each hour. Above this again, or about 

 the center of the clock, is a large dial showing in what degree and 

 sign each planet is in at every hour of the day. Over this is a recess in 

 which the moon is shown in its proper state, and an index declares 

 its age. Still higher are tw^o galleries one above the other. In the 

 first stands death on a pedestal with a bell on each side. At the 

 first quarter a child comes out and strikes one with an apple. At 

 the second quarter a youth strikes two with a dart, the third is struck 

 by a man-at-arms with a Kalberd the fourth by an old man with a 

 crook. Death strikes the hours. The bells are trivial afiairs not 

 more than ten or twelve inches in diameter. In the upper gallery 

 stands the Savior on a pedestal, and at each hour the twelve apostles 

 pass in review before him, each bowing, and as the master raises his 

 hands to bless tliem, a cock standing on the top, flaps his wings and 

 crows three times. The whole mechanism occupies about twenty 

 feet in height. 



The introduction of the pendulum changed tlie whole theory and 

 practice of clock making. The traps and trickery were all cast aside, 

 and time keeping pure and simple, became the watch word, and per- 

 fect accuracy, the goal for which all clock makers strove. The story 

 of the discovery of " isochronal oscillations " by Galileo, is a very 

 pretty one, and I would not spoil it; nay, I often fancy it is 15S2, 

 and I see tlie antiquated old church at Pisa, and seated therein a 

 comely youth of sixteen summers. It seems to me to be a lovely 

 Sabbath morning, and he is thinking of the bright and beautiful fields, 

 of his mates at play, of the birds singing in the groves, and caring 

 little for those by whom he is surrounded ; a careless, graceless, 



