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The clepsydra, or water-clock, which was in common use among the Greeks as early as the fifth century before our era, was probably introduced into Greece from the East, and is likely to have been a Babylonian invention. The astrolabe, an instrument for measuring the altitude of stars above the horizon, which was known to Ptolemy, may also reasonably be assigned to them.
They had but two measures of time the clepsydra, or water-clock, and the sun-dial. When a man had neither of these, he employed all kinds of ingenious expedients for guessing what time it was, if the day were cloudy and the sun not to be seen. King Alfred had invented the plan, long before, of having candles to burn a certain time; the monks knew how long it took to repeat certain psalms.
Here assembled the watch, whose duty it was to patrol the town and blow a horn for the changing of the guard; here, too, was stationed the officer whose duty it was at stated hours to refill the clepsydra." "Oh, I suppose the darn thing froze that probably was the next obstacle," grinned Christopher. "It was," nodded McPhearson.
The first watches, Nuremberg eggs, as they were called, were not made by Peter Henlein until well on into the next century. The only method of measuring time with any accuracy in private houses was the clepsydra or water-clock, which measured the time intervals by the flow of a definite amount of water.
From the day when Plato, four centuries before the Christian era, invented the night watch, a sort of clepsydra which indicated the hours of the night by the sound and playing of a flute, the science had continued nearly stationary.
He glanced as he spoke toward the dial of the clepsydra, and Giulia followed his look in the same direction; it was half an hour after midnight. "The marquis explained to your lordship, or partially so, the motive of his importunate visit," said Giulia, endeavoring to appear calm and collected.
''Tis a subsidence his life, Sir, stealing away like the fluid from the clepsydra less and less left every hour a little time will measure all out. 'What the plague's a clepsydra? asked Cluffe of Toole, as they walked side by side into the club-room.
He was buried, as he had desired, near the clepsydra in the little brook; a young almond tree was planted on his grave; and for years after, all the children commemorated the anniversary of his death, by a festival called Anaxagoreia. Pericles had sent two discreet matrons, and four more youthful attendants, to accompany Philothea to Athens, in case she consented to become the wife of Paralus.
This water clock was called a clepsydra, the name being taken from two Greek words meaning 'thief of water. Well, as you may imagine, the populace were delighted with this contrivance. It seemed as if now they certainly had the prize for which they had been searching. Moreover, with the water clock a new factor in time came into being.
Instead of telling when, as the sundial did, the clepsydra, by measuring a given interval, told how long, which was a very different thing indeed. In other words it began to draw people's attention to the duration of time." "That is different, isn't it?" mused the boy. "Quite another matter altogether," McPhearson said.
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