543

Chap. 8.] Striking the Hours—Ancient Water-Glocks.

have Instruments to show the hour of the day- which operate by fire andwater. Those that depend upon fire “ are made of perfumed ashes.”(Ogilby’s Trans. 1673, p. 159.) This is too vague to convey an idea oftheir construction ; but from Thunberg’s account of tbose he saw in Japan ,we at once learn what they were. For the mensuration of time, observesthat enlightened traveler, the Japanese use the bark of the skimmi (anisetree) finely powdered. A box, 12 inches long, being filled with ashes,small furrows are made in the ashes from one end of the box to the other,and so on backwards and forwards to a considerable number. In thesefurrows is strewed fine powder of skimmi bark, and divisions are madefor the hours. The powder is ignited at one end of a groove, it consumesvery slowly, and the hours are proclaimed by striking the bells of thetemples. (Travels, iii, 228.) Time is also measured in Japan by burn-ing matches, twisted like ropes and divided by knots. When one of theseafter being lighted has burned down to a knot, and thereby denoted thelapse of a certain portion of time, an attendant announces it by a certainnumber of strokes on bells near their temples, if in the day time ; but inthe night, by striking two pieces of wood against each other.—(Ibid. 88.)

In all ancient devices, the passing hours were announced by men ap-pointed for the purpose, a custom still continued over all Asia . Sometimesit was done by the voice. Thus the Turks have an officer (with stronglungs) on the top of every mosque who, stopping his ears with his fingers,proclaims with aloud voice the break of day, noon, three in the afternoon,and twilight. Martial the Roman satirist, refers to a similar practice, andAthenteus mentions “ a mercenary hour-teller.” Allusions to the samecustom are to be found in the Bible—that which ye have spoken inclosets “shall be proclaimed upon the house tops.” But the more generalmode was that which is still so common in the East, viz. by striking a bell,drum, gong, or some other sonorous instrument, and distinguishing thedifferent hours, as in our clocks, by the number of strokes. In modern agesin Europe before the striking parts of town clocks were invented, menStruck the hour on abell, and long after these officers were dispensed withfigures of men were made as Ornaments to perform the same duty. Tothese “ Jacks of the clock,” Shakespeare and other writers of his age offenrefer. Such clocks are still extant: the one attached to St. Dunstan’schurch near Temple Bar, London , is offen mendoned by writers of thelast Century, and we believe is still to be seen.

Some authors attribute the invention of water-clocks to Ctesibius , andothers suppose they were first used under the Ptolemies ; but both aremistakes : they were doubtless greatly improved by the Alexandrianmathematician, and probably reached the acme of perfection under thesuccessors of Alexander. In India , Egypt , Chaldea and China , clepsydr®date back beyond all records. They were known at an early period inGreece . Plutarch mentions them in his life of Alcibiades, who flourishedin the fifth Century B. C. when they were employed in the tribunals atAthens to measure the time to which the orators were limited in theiraddresses to the judges. Demosthenes and his great rival ASschinesallude to this use of them. Plato had water-clocks, and to him was attri-buted their introduction into Greece . Plutarch in his Philosophy , observes,that Empedocles illustrated the act of respiration by “ a clepsidre waterhour-glass.” (Opin. of Philos.) Julius Ctesar found the Britons in pos-session of them. Pliny (book vii , 60.) says, men announced with the voicethe hours from the shadow of the sun, and that Scipio Nasica set up the firstclepsydra “ to divide the hours of both day and night equally, by waterdistilling and dropping out of one vessel into another.”