Human Industry, Chapter 1
CAP. I.
foreign: OR The Invention of Dyals, Clocks, Watches, and other Time-tellers.
TIme is the most precious commodity that man doth enjoy; because time past, cannot be revoked; and time lost, cannot be repaired.
Damna fleo rerum, sed plus fleo damna dierum.
Rex poterit rebus succurrere, nemo diebus.
Lost Treasure I bewail, but lost Days more;
Kings can give treasure, none can days restore▪
Therefore men should set a due estimate upon this commodity, and expend it thriftily and wisely: to which purpose the ancient Sages of the world have ingeniously devised a way to divide even the Natural day (which is one of the least measures of time) into hours, and those into quarters and minutes, and into lesser Fractions then they; that by this Horometry, they might mete out and proportion business to the time, and time to the business in hand. The name of Horae, Hours, came from Horus Apollo, an Aegyptian Sage, who first divided the day into those portions we call hours, as Macrobius Saturnal. l. 1. cap. 21. informs us.
In Aegypt there was a Beast of a very strange kinde, called Cynocephalus, kept in the Temple of Serapis, which in the time of the two Aequinoxes, did make water twelve times in a day, and so often in the night, and that regularly, at even spaces of time; from the observation whereof they divided the natural day into twenty four hours; and that Beast was their Clock and Dyal, both to divide the day, and reckon the hours by. This gave a hint (belike) to the Clepsydrae, or waterglasses (invented by Ctesibius of Alexandria) which distingu…shed the hours by the fall or dropping of water, as Clepsammidia or Sand-glasses did by the running of sand: Miro modo in terris aqua peragit, quod Solis flammeus vigor desuper moderatus excutrit. Cassiod. de Divin. Lection. c. 30. And to shew they owed the invention to this creature, they used to set one carved on the top of these Water glasses, as may be seen in Kirker in Mechanica Aegyptiaca. The Heavens are the grand universal clock of the world, from whose incessant and regular motion, all times here below are distinguished and measured.
And because time is in continual flux or motion, and passes away with silent feet, insensibly and invisibly, therefore it was necessary to invent a way how to make the motion of time (according to the several divisions thereof) visible to the eye, or audible to the ear, that it should not steal away without our notice, but that we might tell and count its steps and stealth.
Anaximenes the Philosopher was the first that took an account of time by shaddows projected on the ground, and which changed and moved according to the motion of the Sun, from which observation he devised Sun-dyals called Scioterica. Though Vitruvius ascribes the Invention to Berosus the Chaldean, who framed Vasa Horoscopa, and Epicyclia ex cavavata cum stylo (as he terms them) certain hollow Dyals (like dishes) with Stiles or Gnomons erected in the middle. At Rome they counted the day (for a long time) by the shaddow of a brazen Obelisk or Pillar: when the shaddow of the pillar did fall in such a place, they did account it Noon or Mid-day, and then a Cryer was appointed to cry it about the Town; So likewise at Evening, when the shaddow fell in such a place, the Cryer proclaimed horam supremam, the last hour of day: other distinctions they had none as yet.
The Nasican Scipio was the first that brought the use of Water-glasses amongst them, and distinguished the hours of day and night; until his time, Populo Romano indiscreta lux fuit, saith Pliny, the Roman people had no division of hours; as the Turks (at this day) have no distinction of their ways by miles, nor of their days by hours, as Busbequias relates Ep. 1. Legat. Turc. In Plautus his time, there was great store of Sun-dyals in Rome, which he calls Solaria; for in one of his *Called Baeotia, which is lost: but these words are cited by Aul. Gellius c…p. 3.Comedies, he brings in an hungry servant complaining of the number of them, and cursing the Invention in these expressions.
Ut illum Dii perdant qui primus horas repperit,
Qui que primus adeo statuit hic Solarium,
Qui mihi comminuit misero articulatim diem.
Nam me puero venter hic er at Solarium
Multum omnium istorum optimum ac veriss imum.
Ibi iste monebat*i. Edere esse, nisi cum nihil erat.
Nunc etians quod est non estur nisi Soli lubet
Itaque jam oppletum est oppidum solariis
Major pars populi, aridi reptant fame.
Among the Persians every ones belly was his Dyal: so it was in Ammianus Marcellinus his time: But these ways of Horometry were rude and imperfect. By Water-glasses the account was not regular: for from the attenuation and condensation of the water, the hours were shorter or longer, according to the heat or coldness of the weather. Then for the Sun-dyals they did serve but at some times, only by day time, and then not alwaies neither, but when the Sun shined. To remedy these defects, some wits did cast about how to distinguish the hours of the night as well as of the day; and of cloudy days as well as of serene and clear. Hereupon some Engines and contrivances have been composed by Trochilique art, or the artifice of Wheels; which by the motion of several Wheels, and Springs, and Weights, and counterpoizes should give an account of the time, without Sun or Stars; and these were called Horologes.
Severinus Boetius a worthy Patrician of Rome, and a most eminent P…ilosopher and Mathematician, was the first (that I finde) that contrived any Engine of this sort: Theodoricus King of the Goths wrote a Letter to the said Boetius to beg one from him for to bestow on his brother in law Gundibald King of Burgundy; in which Letter he calls it, Machinam mundo gravidam, Caelum gestabile, rerum compendium: A portable heaven, and a compendium of the heavenly Sphears, as Cassiodor hath it, who was the penman, in the first book of his variae lectiones.
Aaron King of Persia sent such an Instrument for a present to Char…s the great King of France, in the year 804. it was made of Copper, & Arte Mechanica mirifice compositum, saith Hermannus Contractus, who doth describe the same more largely in his history.
Of these Horologes, some are mute, and some vocal: Vocal I call those which by the sound of a Bell striking at just intervals and periods of time, do proclaim the hour of the day or night, yea, even half hours and minutes; by the benefit whereof, even blinde men that can see neither Sun nor shaddow, and those that lie in their beds, may know how the time goes, and how long they have bin there, although they slept all the while; and are properly called Clocks, from the French word Cloche, a Bell.
It rota nexa rot is, tinnulaque aere sonant.
Mute Horologes are such as perform a silent motion, and do not speak the time of the day, but point at it with an Index, such as are Sun-dyals and Watches; the last of which go by springs and wheels, as the others by weights and wheels: yet some of these are vocal too, and carry Bells and Alarums, to signifie unto us the stealth of time. Many carry Watches about them that do little heed the fabrick and contrivance, or the wit and skill of the workmanship; as there be many that dwell in this habitable world, that do little consider or regard the wheel-work of this great Machin, and the fabrick of the house they dwell in. A King of China upon his first seeing of a Watch, thought it a living creature, because it moved so regularly of it self, and thought it dead when it was run out, and its pulses did not beat.
The wit of man hath been luxuriant and wanton in the Inventions of late years; some have made Watches so small and light, that Ladies hang them at their ears like pendants and jewels; the smalness and variety of the tools that are used about these small Engines, seem to me no less admirable then the Engines themselves; and there is more Art and Dexterity in placing so many Wheels and Axles in so small a compass (for some French Watches do not exceed the compass of a farthing) then in making Clocks and greater Machines.
The Emperour Charls the fifth had a Watch made in the Collet or Jewel of a Ring;Causs. Hier. and King James had the like: and one Georgius Caput Blancus, or George Whitehead was expert at making such knacks at Vicenza in Italy, as Schottus tells us in his Itinerary of that Country.
Andrew Alciat the great Civilian of France, had a kinde of a Clock in his chamber, that should awake him at any hour of the night that he determined, and when it struck the determined hour, it struck fire likewise out of a slint, which fell among tinder, to light him a candle: it was the invention of one Caravagio of Sienna in Italy.
In some Towns of Germany and Italy, there are very rare and elaborate Clocks to be seen in their Town-Halls; wherein a man may read Astronomy, and never look up to the skies.
Sydereos vultus, Cantata que vatibus Astra,
Non opus est Coelo quaerere, quaere domi.
So Grotius of these Globes.
In the Town-Hall of Prague, there is a Clock that shews the annual and periodical motions of the Sun and Moon, the names and numbers of the moneths, days and Festivals of the whole year, the times of the Sun-rising and setting, throughout the year, the Aequinoxes, the length of the days and nights, the rising and setting of the 12 Signes of the Zodiack: The age of the Moon with its several Aspects and Configurations; as George Bruy describes it in Theatro Urbium.
But the Town of Sraesburgh carries the bell of all other steeples (of Germany) in this point. A Scheme of the Strasburg clock you may finde in Coriats Travels, with a full description thereof: it was made by one Conradus Dasypodius a German,Mich. Neander Greg. and Professor of the Mathematiques in that City.
One Linnus a Jesuite of Liege, l. de Magnete.and an Englishman by birth (as Kircher tells me) had a Phial or Glass of water, wherein a little Globe did float, with the four and twenty Letters of the Alphabet described upon it, and on the inside of the Globe was an Index or Stile, to which the Globe did turn and move it self, at the period of every hour, with that letter which denoted the hour of the day successively, as though this little Globe kept pace and time with the heavenly motions, Gassend. de vita Peyresci.
Kircher above mentioned had a Vessel of water, in which, just even with the he …ghe and surface of the water, the twenty four hours were described; upon the water he set a piece of a Cork, and therein some seeds of a certain Heliotrope flower, which (like the flower it self) would turn the cork about, according to the course of the Sun, and with its motion point the hour of the day, ibid.
I… that famous Stable of the Duke of Saxony at Dresden, there is a Room furnished with all manner of Saddles; among the rest, there is one that in the Pommel hath a guilded head, with eyes continually moving; and in the hinder part there of hath a Clock, as M. Morison (an eye witness) relates in his Travels.
Of a portable Clock or Watch, take this ensuing Epigram of our Countryman Thomas Campian, de Horologio Portabili.
Tempor is interpres parvum congestus in orbem.
Qui memores repet is nocte die que sonos.
Ut semel instructus jucundè sex quater hor as
Mobilibus retulis irrequietus agis.
Nec mecum (quocun que feror) comesire gravar is
Annumerans vitae damna, levans que meae:
Times-Teller wrought into a little round,Translated H. V.
Which count'st the days and nights with watchful sound;
How (when once fixt) with busie Wheels dost thou
The twice twelve useful hours drive on and show.
And where I go, go'st with me without strife,
The Monitor and Ease of fleeting life.
But the exactest Clocks and Watches that are, are defective, and want corection; for in Watches, the first half hour goes faster then the last half, and the second hour is slower then the first, and the third then the second; the reason whereof is, because Springs when they are wound up, and then begin their motion, move faster in the beginning then in the ending; as it is with all violent motions…. But in Clocks it happens contrary; the last half hour is faster then the first, because the weights by which they move, move slowly at first, as all ponderous things do, but accelerate their motion when they draw nearer to the earth. Besides, the lines or cords by which the weights do hand (being drawn out into some length) add some weight to the plummets, and consequently some speed to the motion. Both which inconveniences William Landgrave of Hessen, and Tycho Brahe took into consideration how to rectifie, as Tycho relates; but how they sped in the enterprize, he doth not tell us.