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HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1970-02-19, Page 11This was a top cat in the snow sculpture in the carnival. It was tied for first place. PULL Speed and skill were needed to place well in the snowmobile races on Sunday. More than 3000 spectators showed up to watch 100 machines race for the money. Snowmobile racing is a dangerous sport. Several accidents happened Sunday but no one was injured. • The cutter Meet on -gotortiiiy ifterhiiOriti Oro4c1O-j-tho highlight attikal for horiti Swan Meet Were oh the eard invotiiho- thioNthifitt front varies to tOorterS. This snowmobile may be a little sloi4 on the track but it tied for first in the Snow sculpture contest, Jacquie Perrin and friend. the king gets a kiss Faber reported on the sessions of Huron-Perth UCW Presbyterial Annual Meeting in Clinton, Used stamps are to be saved to be converted to use for the work of • the Leprosy Mission. Mrs, H. jOnes expressed courtesy remarks and Mrs. Elgie closed the meeting. Hostesses, /VIrs. li.obt. McGregor, Mts. E. McBride and Mrs, K. Love, served refreshments With artistic reference to St, Valentine. The average cost of electricity to Ontario's residential municipal customers in 1969 was the same as that in 1948, 1.2 cents a kilowatt,hour, Ontario Hydro's assets, Which reached more than $4 billion- in 1969, are expected to double during the 19705, I 110 ctinton.New§-fiepprcl. Thursday, ,FOroary 19, 1.97 .911 ambling with Lucy BY (ucY R;WOobs , 'Amy .enjoyed a hOek, ehtitled "Clocks, and Watches'. by Brie 11134011 She was fascinated as he traced the evolution of timekeeping. with ManY ilittstratiOns- -"Man's flint deck was hirnself many of Tnan's PsYebglugietli activities, such as the time he feels bungry are geared to twenty-four hour rhYthln- — There are also lunar-daily, monthly and. yearly cycles," "One of man's earliest scientific.achievements. WaS the measurement of time by An instrument froal the shadow of a tall palm tree or stone obelisk timekeeping hap evolved through suntlials, water. clocks, sand glasses and fite clocks to the quartz and atomic clocks, which make space travel possible, Watches evolved front table clocks and were first worn around the neck in the 16th century. At some point in civilizatiell the need arose for the division of daylight inWparts — probably amongst the people of the Near East who lived in the deltas of the Nile, Euphrates, Tigris and the basin of the Indies. Around 4000 E,C, villagers used the shadow of a tall palm tree as it moved across the ground, to indicate the intervals of daylight. The Egyptians employed twelve temporal hours and divided the month into three decades of ten days each, probably because they counted on their fingers. The palm was' replaced by a stone obelisk, Cleopatra's Needle, now on the Thames embankment, London, England, was brought from Alexandria at the beginning of the last century. There were also portable shadow clocks for domestic or business use about 1300 B.C. Why the day was divided into 12 hours is not known, except that it was a magical number. There were twelve Great Gods of Olympus, twelve labors of Hercules, twelve tables of Roman Law, and twelve apostles of Jesus Christ. Monks of the Dark Ages chanted verses to mark canonical hours. Water clocks, operated by water dripping through a small hole were next. The hole was apt to be enlarged by the action until someone thought of drilling the hole through a hard jewel which water wouldn't wear. This was the first jewelled time piece. In the early Christian Era, water time pieces became more complicated. Unscupulous Roman lawyers, timed by water clocks, secretly put in mud to slow down the clock. Next came sand glasses as in the present-day egg timer. The British Navy used four-hour sand glasses to time the watches until 1839. The speaker in the British House of Commons was allowed two minutes by a sand glass until after the second World War for traditional reasons. In the 16th century, pulpit or sermon hour glasses were used for the preachers W time sermons. In A.D. 725 Buddhist monks used a water wheel. The Chinese developed a fire cloCk. It burned like a fuse and was knotted at intervals to indicate the hours. A joss stick clock was another common Chinese clock, The sticks were made of clay, aromatic woods, musk and gold dust pasted on a long thin sliver of bamboo, marked at intervals as it burned to represent the hours — some burned several days. The Chinese employed a double twelve hour system. They had a Dragon Boat clock with an alarm. Imported into Japan between the sixth and ninth centuries, they were used in Geisha houses with special boxes on which were the girls' names. When a guest retired with a girl, a joss stick was lighted and placed above her name. In the seventh century Saxons in England used candles to time the day. Each candle burned four hours in a lantern made of wood with windows of thin horn — almost transparent. The Saxons were perhaps the first to use lamp clocks. Oil for the lamp was contained in a reservoir and the amount left showed the time elapse. They were in common use for telling time at night until the 19th century. Saxon sundials were not marked in hours but four equal tides — hence "noontide" and "eventide." Several of such still exist, most notable, Bewcastle Cross in Cumberland (A.D.670) Kirkdale church; Yorkshire (A.D.1060). Cruder shadow dials can be found on many old churches from 12th to 15th century, scratched on vertical stones south of the porch, probably by the priest to show the time of service, hence they vary in spacing and are called Mass dials. A few after 1500 like one on Lillington Church in Sussex, show hours of equal length.. Portable sundials were used before the compass was introduced to Europe in the 13th century. In Europe the mechanical clock was born before the year 1300 A.D. Some had only one hand to mark hours. Early in the 16th century, astronomers noted that the, star constellations moved around the Pole Star and invented an instrument called a nocturnal for telling the time by the stars at night, lever of which is lined up with two stars, Great Bear (Big Dipper) or Little Bear and gives the hour on a scale. The first mechanical clocks may have been small alarms that alerted the sacistran to his duty of ringing the big bell and they were probably replacements for the less reliable water clocks and time candles. The old English word 'clock' is derived from the Latin word clocca meaning a bell. They were probably made of iron or brass and in clock towers which struck the hour on a great' bell. Salisbury Cathedral clock is the oldest. It was installed in 1386 in the bell tower in the Close, reinstalled in the cathedral in the 18th century. At some time it was converted to a pendulum operation was lost and rediscovered in 1929. It" was restored to its original condition in 1954 and now stands working in the west nave of the cathedral. It would be impossible to cover all the variations of design over the years — the puppets which jumped out to strike the bell, the dials showing the phases of the moon, the date or signs of Zodiac, rising of sun, etc. the clocks which operated on two notched uprights by their own weight, ones which ran down a slanting track (perhaps it accounted for the expression "the clock has run down" when needing to be reset), the fancy table glass-domed clock, mantel clocks, bracket and wall clocks, carridge clocks and long case clocks — these were not called Grandfather clocks until 1876 after Henry Clay wrote the song "My Grandfather's Clock Was Too Tall for the Shelf," The European clock-makers industry opened up trade with the Far East. (more next week) Kippen news, KIPPEN UCW Mrs. Ken McKay opened the UCW Meeting with fitting Lenten thoughts of our need to remove fears •'and doubts and express our love for others in deeds as well as words in Order to be true followers of Jesus. The president, Mrs, R. Elgie, took charge of the e business of the meeting. Mrs. H. Binnendyk, the secretary, read the Minutes lot last month. Mts. Laird Finlayson gave the rose report. The pianist, MrS. Ross BreadfoOt, added to the evening by a piano solo. Mrs. ll. D. Stuart assisted by Mrs, E. McLean and Mrs. K. Love presented a public relatiOris and publicity prograrn of the work of the UCVit in various parts of the world. MrS. Elgie read a request from Goderieh eatriP for assistance toward improving facilities, Mrs. R. Eigie and Mrs. Bert 101