Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1895 — Lamp Clocks. [ARTICLE]

Lamp Clocks.

Lamp clocks were among the early specimens of the clockmaker’B art A kind quite common in the seventeenth century consisted of a lamp burner placed at the hose of a glass oil receptacle mounted vertically on a suitable standard. The oil reservoir had attached to It a scale, facing the burner and showing the hours, beginning at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, at which time the lamp was to be lighted In winter, and ending at 7 o’clock In the mornlug. The lamp being lighted, the gradually descending level of tho qll, as combustion proceeded, marked the hours. Another device of later origin utilized sqnjq principle, Jt fonslsG ed of two communicating oil chambers,' superposed by a dock dial. In one of the chambers was placed a night lamp to illuminate this dial, and in the other was suspended a float from a cord which passed around a small pulley. The latter was mounted on a small horizontal axis extending In the centor of the dial. The float of course descended as the oil was consumed and carried the index hand along with it, thus making tho hours precisely as in the case already cited. At their best those timepieces could have had only an indifferent degree of accuracy, yet they probably served their purpose well, and certainly are Interesting at the present time as Illustrating some of the expedients adopted by mechanicians of an earlier period.