People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1893 — THE GREAT CLOCK TOWER. [ARTICLE]

THE GREAT CLOCK TOWER.

Wonderful Timepiece with Neither Mainspring Nor Pendulum. The great clock tower in the Manufactures building commands the wonder and admiration of every visitor. It Is one hundred and fifty feet high, ha» four seven-foot dialß seventy feet above the maiu floor of the building and contains a complete chime of nine sweettoned bells, weighing fourteen thousand pounds. The mcchunism of this great timepiece is vastly different from the ordinary town clock which surmounts the courthouse, church or public school at the home of the rural visitor. It comprises the latest horologe ical Inventions and is part of a system of more than two hundred self-winding clocks which are all controlled and regulated by the master clock in the pavilion. The great tower clock is part of the exhibit of a large clock company, of New York. The sell-winding clock in its simplest form consists of an ordinary train from the center arbor to the escapement—the other arbdrs and wheels and the mainspring being omitted—a fine spring six feet long and ,000 of an inch in thickness, attached at its inner end to the arbor and at its outer end to the spring barrel. A small electric motor concealed in the clock case carries the spring barrel once around, thereby storing sufficient energy in the spring to run the clock an hour. As a result of the frequent winding and reduction of friction the power required to run a self-winding clock is only one forty-sixth part of that used in ordinary clocks The motor will run a year without attention at a cost of less than twenty-five cents The faster clock at the pavilion synchronizes all the clocks throughout the exposition grounds and buildings by an hourly electrical impulse which instantly corrects every clock to the second. The fact that the company produces an accurate tower clock which will operate perfectly without reference to the steadiness of the tower or the location of the controlling clock is leading to the introduction of the electric tower clock In many places where the ordinary weight and pendulum clock would be impracticable.