Time clock

“ A clock is nothing more than a piece of machinery to maintain the action of the pendulum, and at the same time to count and register the number of its oscillations; and by that peculiar property, that one vibration commences exactly where the last terminates, no part of time is lost or gained in the juxtaposition of the units so counted. ”

“ Now, the exact time of the day at the place where we are, can be ascertained by well known and easy observations of the Sun if visible for a few minutes at any time from his being ten degrees high until within an hour of noon, or from an hour after noon until he is only 10 degrees high in the afternoon; if therefore, at any time when such observation is made, a Timekeeper tells us at the same moment what o'clock it is at the place we sailed from, our Longitude is clearly discovered. ”

“ To discover, therefore, whether our clock is right on any given night, it is merely necessary to watch a star with the telescope, and note the exact instant by the clock when it reaches the little cross in the field of view. Knowing from the astronomical tables the time when the star ought to have been on the meridian, and having observed the clock time when it is actually there, the difference is, of course, the error of the clock. ”

“ It is well that modern clocks have no wise saws and [Pg 32] mottoes telling of the unalterable hand of Time; "Old Time, the clock-setter, that bald sexton, Time," as Shakespeare says in King John.
Early Mechanism.—The problem for the old clockmakers who wished to supplant the primitive measurement of time by candle, by the hour-glass, and later by the sundial, was to produce a piece of mechanism which would in twenty-four hours, the prescribed period of day and night, indicate the flight of time hour by hour. ”

“ In ancient books the word cloche simply stands for a bell,—the monks being accustomed to ring a bell at certain periods marked for them by their sun-dials or hour-glasses, and 'What's o'clock?' in old writers is often merely equivalent to the inquiry, 'What hour was last struck by bell?' The word horologe or hour-measurer of course equally applied to the sun-dial, the clepsydra, and the clock, and this convertibility of terms makes it all the more difficult to trace the point at which the newer invention began. ”

“ We must commence with the known data that the earth revolves on its axis in twenty-four hours, or, to be more exact, in 23 hours 56 minutes 4 seconds. Astronomical clocks recording with scientific exactitude this phenomenon are on a plane apart, as are chronometers used by mariners. The astronomer uses a clock with numbers on its dial plate up to twenty-four; the common clock has only twelve hour numerals.
To come straight to modernity, it must be recognized that the measurement of time scientifically and the measurement of time according to civil law are two different things. ”

“ Now, just as she wrote, the clock, which I was careful not to meddle with, had been rapidly gaining time, and I was standing before it, watching it from hour to hour, and slightly changing its rate by dropping small weights upon its pendulum. Time is so important an element with the astronomer, that all else is subordinate to it. ”

“ We are constantly correcting their errors and never entirely succeed in getting them to run accurately to periods of time which exist entirely outside of such little things as men and clocks. So a clock is better as it approximates or bears a regular relation to some motion in nature. The sidereal clock of the astronomer does run to a regular motion; but our 24-hour clocks do not, as we shall see later. Now consider the year, or the sun's apparent motion in the Zodiac, from any given star around to the same one again. ”

“ It is an interesting subject and one that never seems to exhaust itself. For all the wonders of my trade are not yet told. When, for instance, they put the clock on the Metropolitan Life Insurance building here in New York an undreamed-of pinnacle in clock construction was reached. There was a time when the clock on the London Houses of Parliament was the last word in the art—a veritable triumph of the horologe. Not only was it the largest timepiece in the world, but it seemed then the most miraculous. ”

“ So we have a complete striking clock made by a man so poor that he had only his anvil, hammer and file. The weights are hung on cords as thick as an ordinary lead pencil and pass over pulleys having spikes set around them to prevent the cords from slipping. The weights descend 7 ft. in 12 hours, so they must be pulled up—not wound up—twice a day. The single hour hand is a work of art and is cut through like lace. Public clocks may still be seen in Europe with only one hand. ”

“ This I consider a perfect striking clock. It is a large movement of fine workmanship and was made in the department of the Jura, France. When a clock or watch only repeats, I consider the old “five-minute repeater” the best. I used this method in a clock which, on pulling the cord, strikes the hour on a large bell and if that is all it strikes, then it is less than five minutes past. If more than five minutes past it follows the hour by one blow on a small bell for every five minutes. ”

“ The Several Branches of a Great Art.—The timekeeper—whether it be the scientific astronomical clock, or the chronometer used by mariners, or the modern watch, minute in size but recording time with accuracy, or the bracket or table clock, or the long-case clock—has proceeded on parallel lines of development. ”

“ You cannot manufacture a clock which will run that way because the hours of a clock must be all of exactly the same length and it must make noon at precisely 12 o'clock every day. Hence we distinguish clock time from sun time by calling clock time, mean (or average) time and sun time, apparent or solar time. From this explanation you are ready to understand such expressions as Local Mean Time, which, in untechnical language, signifies clock time at the place where you are; Greenwich Mean Time which signifies clock time at Greenwich ”

“ If the clock is properly regulated, every other star in the heavens will come to the meridian at the moment when the time shown by the clock is equal to the right ascension of the star. A clock properly regulated for this purpose will gain about four minutes per day in comparison with ordinary clocks, and when so regulated it is called a sidereal clock. The student should be provided with such a clock for his future work, but one such clock will serve for several persons, and a nutmeg clock or a watch of the cheapest kind is quite sufficient. ”

“ From that time on, the important improvements of clockwork were chiefly made in two directions—those of the mechanical perfection of the escapement and the compensation for changes of temperature.
There is a little world of invention and discovery behind the face of the clock which beats so steadily on your mantel. Look within if you will, and see the compact mechanism with its toothed gears, its coiled spring, or its swinging [91] pendulum, in which the motion of the cathedral lamp is harnessed for your service,—nothing in that grouping has merely happened so. ”

“ The second Strasburg clock was erected about 1570. This was a very elaborate mechanism, showing besides the time, a calendar for a century, the movements of the sun and moon, eclipses of the same and other things. The striking was done by an elaborate automatic arrangement. (See Old Clocks and Watches & Their Makers—F. J. Britten.) 3. In 1842 the clock was again thoroughly reconstructed. This, too, is a very elaborate system of motions showing the movements of sun, moon, and planets, also sidereal time, a calendar, etc. The hours and quarters are struck by automatic figures. ”

“ But the moon alone moves with sufficient rapidity to act as a time indicator for terrestrial voyagers. It is hardly necessary to explain why rapidity of motion is important; but the following illustration may be given for the purpose. The hour-hand of a clock does in reality indicate the minute as well as the hour; yet, owing to the slowness of its motion, we regard the hour-hand as an unsatisfactory time-indicator, and only consider it as showing what hour is in progress. ”

“ When we say “6 o'clock” we mean a point of time marked by the striking of the clock. We have no names for the hour periods. We must say “from 5 to 6” or “between 5 and 6” for an hour period. The “twelfth hour” of the New Testament, I understand to mean a whole hour ending at sunset; so we are dealing with an oriental attitude of mind towards time. I think we get that conception nearly correct when we read of the “middle watch” and understand it to mean during the middle third of the night. Secondly, why do the Japanese use no 1, 2, 3 on their dials? ”

“ The clock hand is the heavy arrow and sweeps the dial once in a whole day, same direction as our clocks. This circle of the months moves along with the hand, but a little faster, so as to gain one number in a month. As shown on the figure it is about one week into the sixth month. Next outward is the broad band having twelve curved lines for the hours ending outwardly in a ring divided into 100 parts, marked off in tens by dots. These curved lines are numbered with the Japanese numerals for hours which you must now be able to read easily. ”

“ Just then a clock chimed out eight strokes, in four sections of two strokes each.
"Eight o'clock!" exclaimed Amy. "Your timepiece must be wrong, Betty. It's nearer noon than eight."
"That's eight bells—twelve o'clock," said the pretty hostess, with a laugh. "That's a new marine clock Uncle Amos gave me for the Gem. It keeps time just as it is done on shipboard."
"And when it's eight o'clock it's twelve," murmured Grace. "Do you have to do subtraction and addition every time the clock strikes?" ”

“ We find, say, that as compared with our watch time, one clock is two minutes fast, the next three minutes fast, the next one minute slow, and so on, two or three perhaps being as much as six or seven minutes fast, and two or three being as much as three or four minutes slow as compared with the watch. We note, however, that these wider ranges of difference occur only in the case of clocks presumably inferior—cheap clocks in small [Pg 68] shops, old clocks in buildings where manifestly the flight of time is not much noted, and so forth. ”

“ Every degree by meridians is equal to four minutes of clock-time. Multiply the longitude by four, and the result in minutes is the difference of time between Greenwich and Aden, 180 minutes, or three hours. When it is noon at Greenwich, it is three o'clock at Aden, as you see in the diagram before you."
"Three o'clock in the morning, Mr. Scott?" queried the commander.
"In the afternoon, I should have added. Going east the time is faster, and vice versa," continued the young officer. ”

“ The clock strikes with a steady pulse, though sometimes it seems in a fever—sometimes in a fit. At any rate we have some fixed standard to correct the calculation of our waking time; but in dreams the standard itself is visionary. ”

“ The astronomer’s clock, for instance, is no standard of the efflux of time; it serves but to subdivide, with approximate accuracy, the interval of successive passages of a star across the meridian, which it may effect perhaps to the tenth part of a second, or 1/864000 part of the whole. The moving globe itself is the real standard clock, and the transit instrument the finger of the clock, while the stars are the hour, minute, and second marks, none the less accurate because they are disposed at unequal intervals. ”

“ We do not dispense with clocks, because from time to time they go wrong, and tell untruly. A clock, organically considered, may be perfect, yet it may require regulating. Till that needful work is done, the moment-hand may mark the half-minute, when the minute-hand is at the quarter-past, and the hour hand is just at noon, and the quarter-bell strikes the three-quarters, and the hour-bell strikes four, while the sun-dial precisely tells two o’clock. ”

“ The latter are made with such accuracy as to correct the time of other clocks, such as turret and church clocks, which are more exposed to the influence of the weather, and are necessarily made upon a coarser scale. In large mansions there is no handsomer or more necessary appointment for the hall or vestibule than a fine eight-day clock, 'to welcome the coming, speed the parting guest,' and to give the time of day to the entire household. ”

“ Complicated Watches are so called because besides the ordinary watch movement they possess other mechanism more or less complicated, by means of which they can indicate special portions of time,—as for instance the Chronograph, which marks on its dial the fifth of a second; the Quarter, and Half-Quarter, and Minute Repeaters, which furnish the time in the dark to within a minute, and are invaluable to invalids and blind persons; the Clock-Watch, which strikes the hours even in the pocket ”

“ The astronomer's principal clock—the one he uses in all his calculations—marks what is known as sidereal, not ordinary, time. The revolution of the earth in its orbit sets the sun back in its [Pg 215] place in the heavens at the rate of about four minutes a day, or one whole day in a year, so that this clock, indicating star time, gains this amount and is only with ordinary clocks once a year. ”

“ How It Works Having traced out the history of the clock and watch mechanism all the way from De Vick's first clock and the clumsy old Nuremberg Egg down to the perfect time-keeping device which we have today, it may be interesting to look a little more closely at the result of so many years and so many inventions—to see what its parts are, and how they are put together, and to observe how the wonderful little machine does its work. ”