Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1898 — Sun Heat Winds His Clock. [ARTICLE]

Sun Heat Winds His Clock.

M. Burton, of Indianapolis, has a clock which has not been wound in three years and six months, but which has run all the time. It is wound by a more reliable agency than anything human. It may be said to be wound by the solar system. In this invention the axiom of heat expanding and cold contracting is the basis. The clock is wound by changes In the temperature, the principle force being in the day and night differences. Mr. Burton found that there is an average difference of twenty degrees in the temparture of the night and the day. The day, of course, is the warmer. The heat of the day expands the atmosphere and the lower temperature of the night contracts it. This is how Mr. Burton applied the force to his clock—an ordinary old-style clock—using a weight: Outside of his house he has a tin tank, ten feet high and nine inches in diameter. It is airtight. From it a tube runs Into the cellar. The tube leads to a cylindrical reservoir, which receives the air from the tank. In this reservoir there is a piston, whose rod moves with a ratchet between the chain on which the piston depends. The heat of the sun expands the atmosphere in the exterior tank, thus forcing any excess into the reservoir near the clock. During expansion the piston rises. In the night time the contraction of the air in the exterior tank reduces the air in the reservoir and the piston lowers itself. The ratchet arrangement winds the clock.—lndianapolis News. ’ •