Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
One feels about it as he might about man's varying, developing methods of telling the time of day. Men began by noting roughly the position of the sun or the length of shadows; they went on to make sun-dials, then water-clocks, then sand-glasses; then weight-driven clocks were blunderingly tried and, later, watches, used first as toys, so little were they to be relied upon.
For Descartes, Newton conceived great admiration, and, like Descartes, he applied himself to experimentation as well as to formal mathematics. His boyish ingenuity in the construction of windmills, kites, and water-clocks was now turned to more serious ends.
To the extreme north above Britain he had ascertained that there were other islands, where in winter the sun scarcely rose above the horizon; and he had observed through accurate measurement by water-clocks that the midsummer nights in Britain were shorter than in the south of France and Italy. He had inquired into the natural products of the country.
Paula knew the man well. He was one of the most respected members of the household, the chief mechanician whose duty it was to test and repair the water-clocks, balances, measures and other instruments.
The Franks were much astonished at the sight of the elephant; for they had never seen one before. They also wondered much at the clock. In those days there were in Europe no clocks such as we have; but water-clocks and hour-glasses were used in some places. The water-clock was a vessel into which water was allowed to trickle.
We find, by Sewall's time, that the houses of well-to-do folk all had "quarrels of glass" set in windows. The flight of time in New England houses was marked without doors by sun-dials; within, by noon-marks, hour-glasses, and rarely by clepsydras, or water-clocks. The first mention, in New England records, of a clock is in Lechford's note-book.
He took it out of the hands of the priests, and made it a matter of pure civil regulation. The year was defined by the sun, and not as before by the moon. Thus the Romans were the first to bring the scientific knowledge of the Greeks into practical use; but while they measured the year with a great approximation to accuracy, they still used sun-dials and water-clocks to measure diurnal time.
One of their kings had a lake in his palace, and in the middle a kiosk, whence water descended on each side, thus enclosing him in the coolest of summer-houses. It was in Toledo that Ez-Zarkal made water-clocks for astronomical calculations, but now this city obtains its water only by the primitive machinery of donkeys, which are driven up and down by water-carriers as in Barbary itself.
Characteristic mementoes of him are preserved among the Royal Society's treasures. There is a solar dial made by the boy Isaac, when, instead of studying his grammar and learning Virgil and Horace, he was busy making windmills and water-clocks.
If they had to perform a hundred tragedies, they would be timed by water-clocks, as they are said to have been at one period. The limit, however, set by the actual nature of the thing is this: the longer the story, consistently with its being comprehensible as a whole, the finer it is by reason of its magnitude.
Word Of The Day