HOW ANCIENTLY THE PASSING HOUR WAS TOLD.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 48, 28 November 1891, Page 628

HOW ANCIENTLY THE PASSING HOUR WAS TOLD.

W) f y* Oluails lived for 500 years in complete It i£ noranc e of methods of measuring time. I\ ttwsSSlrli T* l6 ordinary day was divided into three IX IF P arts » mornin", noon and evening. The only town clock was the usher of the Senate, who, as soon as he perceived the rising sun between the rostra and the gnecostaxis, sent his rude call over the roofs of the city from the heights of the < 'apitol, and by the same means informed the less observing when he saw it disappear between the column Ma nia and the prison. In the year 491 the city council placed a sun dial in the Forum, and four years after a clepsydra, or water clock, which marked with comparative accuracy the hours of the day and night. Before the appearance of this useful invention, which had been a long time known elsewhere, the only means of estimating the hour of the day at Rome was the distance of the sun from the horizon, a practice still employed by hunters or by households when the family timepiece is out of order and there is no town clock to be consulted. In the matter of measuring time the Egyptians, Assyrians, Greeks and even the Hebrews had all anticipated the Romans. The following passage from Isaiah is supposed to throw a certain light on the civilisation of the chosen people : ‘ Behold I will bring again the shadow of the degrees which is gone down in the sundial of Abaz ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.’ From which it has been inferred by some scientists that Ahaz had caused a staircase, steps or ‘ degrees,’ to be constructed, each step of which indicated a certain fixed time in the progress of the sun through the heavens. The method is sufficiently simple, so simple that any farmer might imitate it by dividing into equal spaces, representing hours, the east and west sides of his barn, there being naturally some intervening object to cast a shadow. The sun dial simply indicated mid-day, or the moment when the sun is at the zenith, or if it served for further use that use was of limited value, whereas the waterclock marked the hours, and was, therefore, not only more complicated but of much greater utility. It seems, therefore, hard to believe that the more useful and more intricate method should have been first known to mankind. The water-clock is of unknown antiquity among the Chinese, and one, very old and somewhat cumbersome, may still be seen at Canton. The most simple form of this instrument is that of a glass vessel in the form of a funnel, with an opening at the bottom to permit the water to escape slowly. Fill this vessel with water and at the expiration of an hour indicate the level of the water by a mark on the glass. At the expiration of the second hour make another similar mark, ana so on till the receptacle is empty and you have a clepsydra capable of marking time with comparative exactitude. If the water is made to fall into a second receptacle of glass this may be marked in the same manner, if it is preferred. This being taken as a starting point, the principle may be applied in many ways, and the instrument may take highly complicated, or highly ornamental forms. Water clocks received many modifications in the course of time, and were in use long after the invention of clocks. Some of them had combinations of wheels, and the weight of the water, for which in time metal weights were substituted, was made to accomplish many wonderful things. The most celebrated of all, was sent by Haroun el Raschid the Magnificent, to Charlemagne in the ninth century. The mechanism of this seems really wonderful, for every hour was marked by the exact number of small brass balls which fell upon a bell placed below, while at twelve o’clock twelve knights came out of twelve windows, which closed at once. behind them, the windows being previously open. And these are only a few of the wonders of this intricate machine, which would be curious even in the present age of marvels. This clepsydra is said to have been made in Persia. It was not till 300 years after this that clepsydras striking the hours were made in Europe, the first heard of being one at Citeaux in Burgundy, which sounded the hour of meeting for that monastery. About the year 1200 they are thought to have been common in the churches of Paris'. As in the dark ages everybody could not have a water-clock, nor even every church or convent, and for their religious exercises the monks and clergy were obliged to know the time with a certain exactness, the church bells sounded at all hours of the day or night. To know the hour for ringing the bells in the day time the monk watched the sun and observed its distance from the horizon. At night he went out of doors and consulted the stars if it was clear ; if the sky was overcast, he read a certain number of psalms and estimated the time accordingly. The canonical intervals for sounding the bells were every three hours, beginning at midnight, but they were also rung for other offices, and the hour was always understood by the people living within hearing. Persons exercising the various trades began and finished work by them. Shoemakers, silkspinners, carpet-weavers and other ordinary trades left their work when the bells sounded vespers in their separate parishes. Bakers were authorized to continue open till matins sounded, and so on. At the grain and fish-markets, which were within hearing of the bells of Notre Dame at Paris, the hours of the sales were regulated thereby by royal edict. Even members of Parliament had their hours of labour regulated by the offices of the church. Shepherds in the mountains, not being within the hearing of church bells, determined the hours of the night by means of a piece of lead attached to a cord and suspended before the North star.

As the time when the clepsydra was first used is unknown so the epoch when the weight of water was replaced by that of iron, iron weights and a regulator is left in obscurity. Trench historians inform us that Philip the Handsome was possessed, in 1314, of a clock of silver moved by two weights of lead, and that in 1328 there was a clock at the Louvre Palace. King John of France, while a captive in England, whither he had gone, taking his clock with him, having a great deal of trouble with it, was obliged to send it to France to get it repaired, and as even then it did not go well, he found it necessary to order another. The first clocks were so imperfect that Charles V. of France preferred the old method of marking time, and kept constantly in his chapel a huge candle marked in twenty-four divisions correspondmg with the hours of the day. In 1370 it was decided to place in one of the towers of the royal palace a clock that would sound the hours in a manner that would render it less necessary for the common people to depend on the

church bell. Thenceforth good clocks, public and private, increased in number and became more perfect, not losing or gaining generally more than from fifteen minutes to half an hour daily. They were also made in portable form, and Louis XI. had one constructed which he could carry about with him, by enclosing it in a trunk, which was transported on the back of a horse. The man who had the care of it received for his own wages and for his horse three pence a day, which may give some idea of the meagre wages paid at that period. Clocks were then as now suspended against the walls, with their weights falling below, or on tables or pedestals. Hourglasses were, nevertheless, often used and water clocks continued to be manufactured in France till the middle of the seventeenth century, or nearly to the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV. To make a portable clock, that is a watch, it was necessary to find another motor, and this result was achieved in the beginning of the sixteenth century by replacing weights and cords by a spiral spring and leaving the balance wheel free on its pivot. The invention came into France from Nuremberg, already celebrated for its clocks, and the first seen at Paris was ordered by Francis I. Thirty years later they had become comparatively common, and assumed various forms. They were made round, oval hexagonal, rectangular, spherical, in the form of stars, shells’ books, olives, hearts, acorns, pears, lilies, Maltese crosses’ etc. If they were destined to be much seen they were covered with miniatures, with enamel or filigree work. Ladies and gentlemen in high society wore their watches suspended about the neck by a cord or chain, or ostentatiously displayed on the breast. An ancient writer relates that a youth detected in the act of severing the chain of a gentleman’s watch was hanged on the spot. These watches generally varied a quarter of an hour a day. Some were so small that ladies wore them as earrings. Anne of Denmai k wife of James I. of England, had a watch in a ring that struck the hours, not on a bell, but on the fim'er of the wearer. ° Once the Duke of Orleans, at one of his morning leeve** perceived that a striking watch which he valued highly had disappeared. To some one suggesting that everybodv be searched, he replied with an impulse of generous feeling ‘ Let everybody leave at once for fear the watch may strike and discover the person who has taken it.’ This peculiarity of watches played its part in the private life of the epoch and rules regarding it appeared in the codes of good manners’ One of these declared that this sound, occurring so often iri company, disturbed the conversation, and suggested that the striking watches be replaced by others having raised figures that might be felt in the pocket by the owner thus enabling him to tell the hour without being guilty of the impoliteness of consulting his watch in the presence of others