about 10 in. long. The pendulum had apparently no escapement and the puzzle was how it was maintained in motion. It was impossible to detect the mystery by the aid of the eye alone; the truth, however, was that the whole figure swung to and fro at each oscillation of the pendulum, to an amount of 1400 of an inch on the outside rim of the base. A movement of 1400 of an inch per half second of time is imperceptible; it would be equivalent to perception of motion of the minute hand of a clock about 6 in. in diameter, which is almost impossible. The connexion of the figure to the anchor of the escapement was very complicated, but clocks of the kind kept fair time. A straw, poised near the end on a needle and with the short end united by a thread to the bronze figure, makes the motion apparent at once and discloses the trick. Another magical clock consists of two disks of thin sheet glass mounted one close behind the other, one carrying the minute hand and the other the hour hand. The disks rest on rollers which rotate and turn them round. The front and back of the movable disks are covered by other disks of glass surrounded by a frame, so that the whole looks simply like a single sheet of glass mounted in a frame, in the centre of which the hands rotate, without any visible connexion with the works of the clock.
Clocks have been made with a sort of balance wheel consisting of a thread with a ball at the end which winds backwards and forwards spirally round a rod. In others a swing or see-saw is attached to the pendulum, or a ship under canvas is made to oscillate in a heavy sea. In others the time is measured by the fall of a ball down an inclined plane, the time of fall being given by the formula t＝√(2s/g sin a), where s is the length of the incline and a the inclination. But friction so modifies the result as to render experiment the only mode of adjusting such a clock. Sometimes a clock is made to serve as its own weight, as for instance when a clock shaped like a monkey is allowed to slide down a rope wound round the going barrel. Or the clock is made of a cylindrical shape outside and provided with a weighted arm instead of a going barrel; on being put upon an incline, it rolls down, and the fall supplies the motive power.
Clocks are frequently provided with chimes moved exactly like musical boxes, except that the pins in the barrel, instead of flipping musical combs, raise hammers which fall upon bells. The driving barrel is let off at suitable intervals. The cuckoo clock is a pretty piece of mechanism. By the push of a wire given to the body of the bird, it is bent forward, the wings and tail are raised and the beak opened. At the same time two weighted bellows measuring about 1 × 2 in. are raised and successively let drop. These are attached to small wooden organ pipes, one tuned a fifth above the other, which produce the notes. Phonographs are also attached to clocks, by which the hours are called instead of rung.
Clocks are also constructed with conical pendulums. It is a property of the conical pendulum that if swung round, the time of one complete revolution is the same as that of the double vibration of a pendulum equal in length to the vertical distance of the bob of the conical pendulum below its point of support. It follows that if the driving force of such a pendulum can be kept constant (as it easily can by an electric contact which is made at every revolution during which it falls below a certain point) the clock will keep time; or friction can be introduced so as to reduce the speed whenever the pendulum flies round too fast and hence the bob rises. Or again by suitable arrangements the bob may be made to move in certain curves so as to be isochronous. Plans of this kind are employed rather to drive telescopes, phonographs and other machines requiring uniform and steady movement.
Comical and performing clocks were very popular in the 15th and 16th centuries. One at Basel in Switzerland was arranged so as gradually to protrude a long tongue as the pendulum vibrated. It is still to be seen there in the museum. The famous clock at Strassburg, originally constructed in 1574, remade in 1842, displays a whole series of scenes, including processions of the apostles and other persons, and a cock that crows. A fine clock at Venice has two rather stiff bronze giants that strike the hours.
Clocks with complicated movements representing the positions of the heavenly bodies and the days of the week and month, allowance being made for leap year, were once the delight of the curious. Repeating clocks, which sounded the hours when a string was pulled, were once popular. The string simply raised the lifting piece and let the clock strike as the hands would do when they came to the hour. This was of use in the old days when the only mode of striking a light at night was with a flint and steel, but lucifer matches and the electric light have rendered these clocks obsolete.
 |
| Fig. 34.—Curve of Variation of daily rate. |
Testing Clocks.—The average amount by which a clock gains or loses is called its mean or average daily rate. A large daily rate of error is no proof that a clock is a bad one, for it might be completely removed by pendulum adjustment. What is required is that the daily rate shall be uniform, that is, that the clock shall not be gaining (or losing) more on one day than on another, or at one period of the same day than at another. In fig. 34 A B is a curve in which the abscissae represent intervals of time, the ordinates the number of seconds at any time by which the clock is wrong. The curve C D is one in which the ordinates are proportional to the tangents of the angles of inclination of the curve A B to the axis of x, that is dy/dx. Whenever the line A B is horizontal, C D cuts the axis of x. In a clock having no variation in its daily rate the curve A B would become a straight line, though it might be inclined to the axis of x, and C D, also a straight line, would be parallel to the axis of x, though it might not coincide with it. In a clock set to exact time and having no variations of daily rate, both the curves would be straight lines and would coincide with the axis of x. The curve C D, known as the curve of variation of daily rate, will generally be found to follow changes of day and night, and of temperature, and the fluctuations of the barometer and hygrometer; it is the curve which reveals the true character of the clock. Hence in testing a clock two things have to be determined: first, the daily rate of error, and second, the average variations from that daily rate, in other words the irregularities of going. To test a clock well six months’ or a year’s trial is needed, and it is desirable to have it subjected to considerable changes of temperature.
The bibliography of horology is very extensive. Among modern works Lord Grimthorpe’s Rudimentary Treatise on Clocks, Watches and Bells (8th edition, London, 1903) is perhaps the most convenient. Many references to older literature will be found in Thomas Reid’s Treatise on Clock and Watchmaking (1849). (G.; H. H. C.)
Decorative Aspects.—In art the clock occupies a position of considerable distinction, and antique examples are prized and collected as much for the decorative qualities of their cases as for the excellence of their time-keeping. French and English cabinet-makers have especially excelled, although in entirely different ways, in the making of clock cases. The one aimed at comely utility, often made actually beautiful by fit proportion and the employment of finely grained woods; the other sought a bold and dazzling splendour in which ornament overlay material. It was not in either country until the latter part of the 17th century that the cabinet-maker’s opportunity came. The bracket or chamber clock gave comparatively little scope to the worker in wood—in its earlier period, indeed, it was almost invariably encased in brass or other metal; and it was not until the introduction of the long pendulum swinging in a small space that it became customary to encase clocks in decorative woodwork. The long or “grandfather” clock dates from about the fourth quarter of the 17th century—what is, perhaps, the earliest surviving English dated specimen is inscribed with the date 1681. Originally it was a development
