Things to be remembered in daily life : with personal experiences and recollections / by John Timbs.
- John Timbs
- Date:
- 1863
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Things to be remembered in daily life : with personal experiences and recollections / by John Timbs. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![became a matter of certainty. But the genuineness of Asser work is doubted,—so the story is discredited. Neverthi less, there is nothing very questionable in Alfred's repute method; and it is curious to see that an improvement was patented so recently as 1859, which consists in gradi ating the exterior of candles, either by indentation or colon ing at intervals, and equal distances apart, according to ih size of the candles. The marks are to consist of houri half-hours, and, if necessary, quarter-hours; the distance t be determined by the kind of candle used. Bishop Wilkins, in his MatTiematieal Magic, in the cha] ter relating to such engines as did receive a regular an lasting motion from something belonging to their ow frame, whether weights or springs, &c., quotes Panciro lus, taken from that experiment in the multipUcatio of wheels mentioned in Vitruvius, where he speaks of a instrument whereby a man may know how many miles c paces he doth go in any space of time, whether or no 1 pass by water in a boat or ship, or by land in a chariot c coach. They have been contrived also into little pock( instruments, by which, after a man hath walked a who] day together, he may easily know how many steps he hat taken. More curious is the alarum, mentioned by Wa chius, which, though it were but two or three inches big, y( would both wake a man and of itself light a candle for hii at any set hour of the night. And those great springs, whic are of so great force as to turn a mill (as some have coi trived), may be easily apphed to more various and difficu' labours. Occasional!}', in these old curiosities, we trace anticipi lions of some of the scientific marvels of the present da;; Thus, when the Grand Duke of Tuscany, in 1669, visite the Royal Society at Arundel House, he was shown clock, whose movements are derived from the vicinity of loadstone; and it is so adjusted as to discover the distanc of countries, at sea, by the longitude. The analogy betwee: this clock and the electrical clock of the present day is nc a little remarkable. The Journal-book of the Society for 166 contains many allusions to Hook's magnetic watch goin slower or faster according to the greater or less distance c the loadstone, and so moving regularly in every posture.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21081244_0026.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
