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XXXIII. 



NOTE ON SOME JAPANESE CLOCKS LATELY PURCHASED 

 FOR THE SCIENCE AND ART MUSEUM. By ARTHUR 

 A. RAMBAUT, M.A. 



[Read February 20, 1889.] 



I am enabled by the kind permission of the Director of the Science 

 and Art Museum to describe some Japanese clocks, which appear 

 of considerable interest as throwing some light on the method 

 of reckoning time employed by 

 the Japanese until very recently. 



These clocks are three in num- 

 ber. Though differing in other 

 respects they agree in this par- 

 ticular, that the time is recorded, 

 not by a hand rotating about an 

 axis, but by a pointer attached 

 to the weight, which projects 

 through a slit in the front of the 

 clock-case. This pointer travels 

 down a scale attached to the front 

 of the clock, and thus points out 

 the hour. 



In the case of the largest of 

 the three clocks, the upper part 

 of which is shown in figure 1, 

 there is a slit at each side of the 

 dial, and the dial itself is of an 

 elaborate construction, as shown 

 in figure 2. The ends of a straight 

 bar of metal are bent at right 

 angles, and passing through the 

 slits are attached to the weight. 

 On this bar there is an index which moves stiffly up and down it, 

 and can be set at any required point along it. The symbols on 

 the dial are Chinese words and numerals, which were generally 



