to an Astronomical Clock and Telegraph Register. 209 



or Locke's apparatus for attachment to the arbor of the seconds 

 hand of the primitive clock. 



In order to carry out fully your wishes and instructions, it 

 would be necessary that this automatic clock register should dis- 

 tinguish the hours, minutes and seconds. Dr. Locke proposes 

 for this purpose to make the beginning of the ordinary minutes 

 omit one, of Jives of minutes two, of tens of minutes three, and 

 of an hour omit four consecutive blank spaces. Thus ordinary 

 beginnings of minutes have continuous lines of two seconds, Jives 

 three, tens four, and hours five. 



The mode of using the register for marking the date of any 

 event that cannot be determined automatically, but whose occur- 

 rence must be known from human sensations, is to tap on a break 

 circuit key simultaneously with the event. The beginning of 

 the short blank space thus registered in the midst of the indented 

 line ot the automatic clock register, fixes, by a permanent printed 

 record, the date of the event, or rather the date of the human 

 estimate of the event, as indicated by the tap of the key. 



For this mode of distinguishing the hours, minutes and sec- 

 onds on the fillet of paper, and for the idea of using the break cir- 

 cuit key, I was indebted to Dr. Locke. This kind of key is 

 required by the necessity of having a closed circuit for the reg- 

 ister as much of the time as possible, so that an event occurring 

 any where along the line may be instantly recorded on the reg- 

 ister. 



Having thus given credit to Mr. Wheatstone and to Dr. Locke 

 f°r the parts severally performed by them in the perfection of 

 this process, I beg to suggest the following slight modification of 

 Dr. Locke's- mode of "marking seconds, whether wc use for our 

 automaton Wheatstone's circular disk or Locke's toothed wheel 

 a nd platinum tilt hammer. I would mark the beginnings of or- 

 dinary fives and tens of minutes and hours, as Dr. Locke dees. 

 1 would make the blank spaces of the other ordinary seconds the 

 smallest possible consistent with the certainty of breaking cir- 

 cuit. The blank spaces of the fives of seconds should be visi- 

 bly larger, those of tens still larger, finally those of thirties, 

 ^rgest of all. 



% this arrangement the eye would readily distinguish the 

 exact value of the numbers of whole seconds. An inch of paper 

 ,s > I think, enough for a second of time. The probable error of 

 the reading of the fractions of a second with a proportional scale 

 0r compass, will not be greater than one hundredth of a second. 

 I would have the register adjusted by a centrifugal clock like 

 those of the Munich equatorial, so as to deliver, as near as may 

 be, one hundred inches of paper hi one hundred seconds of tune 

 °f the automaton clock register. 



s *coy D Series, Vol. VII; No. 20.— March, 1849. 27 



