Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 18, 2025
Another example: the machine for measuring duration is at first a simple clepsydra; then there are added marks indicating the subdivisions of time, then a water gauge causes a hand to move around a dial, then two hands for the hours and minutes; then comes a great moment by the use of weights the clepsydra becomes a clock, at first massive and cumbersome, later lightened, becoming capable, with Tycho-Brahé, of marking seconds; and then another moment Huyghens invents the spiral spring to replace the weights, and the clock, simplified and lightened, becomes the watch.
This was called a stentorophonic tube, and seems to have been a sort of gigantic megaphone or speaking-trumpet. It is recorded that it sent the voice for a dozen miles. A drawing of this strange instrument is preserved in the Vatican. Another queer signaling device, built and operated upon a novel principle, was an even greater wonder among the early peoples. This was known as a clepsydra.
When the door had closed, he sat for a few minutes with head bent, then roused himself, glanced at the clepsydra which stood in a corner of the room, and turned a page or two of the volume lying before him. Presently his attention was caught by the sound of fluttering wings; on the window sill had again alighted the two doves, and again they seemed to regard him curiously.
Such admiration did this pure and rare panorama evoke in me that I could not reconcile myself to the idea of going to bed. The clepsydra had already accomplished three turns, and yet I roamed by the railing under the dryandra trees. You took the trouble yesterday to come in person and cheer me up. Time after time also did you send your attendants round to make affectionate inquiries about me.
One of the most curious uses to which it was put, was to mark the Suprema tempestas, which closed the hours of legal business, by means of its shadow projected on the pavement; a primitive mode of reckoning time which existed before the first Punic war, and was afterwards superseded by a sun-dial and a clepsydra or water-clock erected in the Forum.
It was within half an hour of midnight, and the beautiful Giulia Arestino was sitting restlessly upon an ottoman, now holding her breath to listen if a step were approaching the private door behind the tapestry then glancing anxiously toward a clepsydra on the mantel. "What can detain him thus? will he deceive me?" she murmured to herself.
Upon it the chief of the rowers sat; in front of him a sounding-table, upon which, with a gavel, he beat time for the oarsmen; at his right a clepsydra, or water-clock, to measure the reliefs and watches.
The want of correct means of measuring time and temperature was severely felt; the clepsydra of Ctesibius answered very imperfectly for the former, the hydrometer floating in a cup of water for the latter; it measured variations of temperature by variations of density.
An "inch of time" refers to the sundial, which was known to the Chinese in the earliest ages, and was the only means they had for measuring time until the invention or introduction it is not certain which of the more serviceable clepsydra, or water-clock, already mentioned.
Dowager lady Chia had some soup, fine cakes and fruits handed to Wen Kuan and her companions to regale themselves with, and then gave orders to sound the drum. The singing-girls were both experts, so now they beat fast; and now slow. Either slow like the dripping of the remnants of water in a clepsydra. Or quick, as when beans are being sown.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking