In 1735, John Harrison, a rural clock-maker, invented a time-piece which scarcely ever lost five seconds in six months. To him, in 1767, was paid $100,000, as the first prize for all but an infallible time-keeper.
A Cat-Clock.
The following curious incident is to be found in Hue's "Chinese Empire:"—
"One day when we went to pay a visit to some families of Chinese Christian peasants, we met, near a farm, a young lad who was taking a buffalo to graze along our path. We asked him carelessly, as we passed, whether it was yet noon. The child raised his head to look at the sun, but it was hidden behind thick clouds, and he could read no answer there. 'The sky is so cloudy,' said he; 'but wait a moment;' and with these words he ran toward the farm, and came back a few minutes afterward with a cat in his arms. 'Look here,' said he, 'it is not noon yet;' and he showed us the cat's eyes, by pushing up the lids with his hands. We looked at the child with surprise, but he was evidently in earnest. 'Very well,' said we; 'thank you;' and we continued on our way.
"To say the truth, we had not at all understood the proceeding, but we did not wish to question the little pagan, lest he should find out that we were Europeans by our ignorance. As soon as we reached the farm, however, we made haste to ask our Christian friends whether they could tell the clock by looking into a cat's eyes. They seemed surprised at the question; but as there was no danger in confessing to them our ignorance of the properties of a cat's eyes, we related what had just taken place. That was all that was necessary; our complaisant neophytes immediately gave chase to all the cats in the neighborhood. They brought us three or four, and explained in what manner they might be made use of for watches. They pointed out that the pupils of their eyes went on constantly growing narrower until twelve o'clock, when they became like a fine line, as thin as a hair, drawn perpendicularly across the eye, and that after twelve the dilation recommenced."
Curious Time-Piece.
About 1679 Nicholas Grallier de Servierre, an old soldier who had served in the Italian army, constructed a whimsical clock. A figure of a tortoise, dropped into a plate of water, having the hours marked on the rim, would float around and stop at the proper time, telling what o'clock it was. A lizard ascended a pillar, on which the hours were marked, and pointed to the time as it advanced. A mouse did the same thing by creeping along an hour-marked cornice.
Clock Presented to Charlemagne.
The French historians describe a clock sent to Charlemagne in the year 807, by the famous eastern caliph, Haroun-al-Raschid, which was evidently furnished with some kind of wheel-work, although the moving power appears to have been produced by the fall of water. In the dial of it were twelve small doors forming the divisions for the hours, each door opened at the hour marked by the index, and let out small brass balls which, falling on a bell, struck the hours—a great novelty at that time. The doors continued open until the hour of twelve, when twelve figures, representing knights on horseback, came out and paraded around the dial-plate.