Читать книгу Mechanics: The Science of Machinery - A. Russell Bond - Страница 23

Table of Contents

The most remarkable clepsydræ were those invented by an old Alexandrian mathematician, Ctesibius, who lived about 250 years before Christ. Ctesibius introduced the siphon principle into his clocks, and also employed gear wheels and even a cord and pulley. Furthermore, he was the first man to employ jeweled bearings in a timepiece. The use of jewels in timepieces was reinvented in 1704 A. D. However, Ctesibius used his jewels in a very different way from that in which they are used now, as will be described below.

FIG. 25.—THE JEWELED WATER CLOCK BUILT BY CTESIBIUS ABOUT 250 B. C.

Figure 25 illustrates the most interesting clock he built and it was arranged to run year in and year out. The clock had a cylindrical face mounted on a hollow pedestal in which the mechanism was concealed. The column was divided off into twenty-four hours and a pointer that rose vertically marked off the lapse of time. But here he was faced with a serious complication. Hours in those days varied with the time of the year. A day from sunrise to sunset consisted of twelve hours. In summer, when the days were long, the hours were long, and in the short days of winter the hours were correspondingly shortened. To be sure, the variations in the length of the day are not so great in Egypt as they are in our latitude, because it is nearer to the equator; nevertheless there is a difference which the precise old mathematician had to take into account. In order to provide for variations in the hours, Ctesibius ran the lines spirally around the column and arranged his cylindrical clockface to turn slightly each day, so that in the winter months the clock hand or pointer moved over that part of the face where the daylight hour lines were closer together and the hours of night were farther apart, while in summer, the reverse would obtain. At the bottom of the column were two little cherubs. The cherub on the left was a sad little fellow who was constantly weeping. Tears trickled from his eyes and dropped into a basin. The tears passed into the hollow pedestal of the clock and gradually filled a cylinder formed in the base of the clock. A piston in this cylinder supported the other cherub. As the water gradually filled the cylinder this cherub was slowly raised and a wand he held in his hand pointed off the hours on the clockface. When the twenty-fourth hour was reached, a siphon came into play, which suddenly emptied the cylinder, permitting the pointer to drop. The siphon discharged its water into a small water wheel, which, by means of the system of gears, turned the column slightly to bring the hour lines in proper positions for measuring the time intervals of the next day. The column made one complete turn in 365 days. The jeweled bearings, referred to above, were placed in the eyes of the weeping boy, so that the holes that pierced them would not be enlarged by the constant wear of the water and thereby increase the rate of flow.