Examples of household taste . whenever a rich contrast could be producedwith it, and a profusion of the most brilliant gems was another characteristicof the display. Until the invention of wheel-clocks moved by weights, which some personsattribute to the genius of Archimedes, the science of horology was in a crudestate of development. The clepsydra, or water-clock, was perhaps the mostperfect piece of mechanism for measuring time known to the ancients, although INDUSTRIAL ART. 343 it was not as accu-rate as the sand-glasses which af-terwards came into •very general earliest formof clep
Examples of household taste . whenever a rich contrast could be producedwith it, and a profusion of the most brilliant gems was another characteristicof the display. Until the invention of wheel-clocks moved by weights, which some personsattribute to the genius of Archimedes, the science of horology was in a crudestate of development. The clepsydra, or water-clock, was perhaps the mostperfect piece of mechanism for measuring time known to the ancients, although INDUSTRIAL ART. 343 it was not as accu-rate as the sand-glasses which af-terwards came into •very general earliest formof clepsydra was areservoir, usually atransparent vase,rilled with small orifice atthe bottom allowedthe liquid to flowout gradually, thelevel of its surfacein the vessel mark-ing the time. Latera method by whichthe water was madeto drip, drop bydrop, upon a wheel,which communi-cated motion to astatue that pointedwith a wand to adisk marked withdivisions of time,was of theseclepsydras werevery costly and in-. Enlargement of Norwich Gate: Barnard, Bishop &> Barnards. genious, and tothese pointing stat-ues may be traced,perhaps, the mod-ern dial with itsmovable earliest formof sun-dial bywhich the time ofday was measuredwas, probably, aplain column erect-ed on some levelspot — the instru-ment known to usas a sun-dial be-longing to a muchlater period. But all theseancient styles ofhorologues weresuperseded by theapplication to time-markers of ma-chinery moved byweights, and after-wards by springs,and the use of thependulum with itsexact the introduc- tion of the pendulum for this purpose, a new era began in clock-making, andthe ingenuity of scientific men was directed to perfecting the methods of itsuse and making the machinery what it is at present, the perfection of mechanism 344 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1S76. and scientific knowledge. Correct timekeepers, both watches and clocks, arethings of such ordinary and universal use
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