A Peculiar Clock

1895

It Is a Simple and Accurate Timepiece, and Is Run by Alcohol.

There is in this city a clock that for simplicity and accuracy surpasses the historic one of Benjamin Franklin. It is the property of Gerhard Eckhardt, 1242 South Fourth street, and was constructed on a plan designed by one of his assistants, Robert Saloch.

The framework is shaped like an elongated horseshoe, about 2½ feet in height, and from its center hangs a wheel 4½ inches in diameter and an inch wide. This wheel is inclosed by glass so as to be airtight. Along its inner circumference are 16 small partitions, connected with each other by means of a puncture the size of a pinhole.

The wheel turns on an axle 6 inches long, about which is coiled the thread by which the wheel is suspended. Now, if the 16 partitions were empty, there would be nothing to prevent the thread about the axle uncoiling and the wheel falling down. As a counter force, therefore, eight of the partitions are filled with alcohol, and when the thread begins to unwind the alcohol on one side is higher than on the other.

Consequently the force of gravity acts to prevent the string from untwisting further. It is here that the pinholes come in, for, as the alcohol slowly oozes through them in order to seek the proper level, the thread unwinds a little more, the one side is again raised slightly, and so the thread by scarcely perceptible stops slowly descends.

On the scale figured out in this instrument it takes just 12 hours for the wheel to descend the distance of two feet. It can then be easily wound up again by twisting back the thread upon the axle. To mark the exact time of the day there is constructed on one side of the frame a straight dial with divisions as close as five minutes. A single hand, balanced upon the axle of the descending wheel, points the time upon the scale.

Mr. Saloch told a reporter that he had been at work on this ingenious device during the whole of the summer. He had tried all sorts of substances, water, oil, etc., but had found none so serviceable as alcohol. There is, of course, no very great merit to the clock as it is now, except as a show piece.

By slightly complicating matters, however, adding four wheels and enlarging the axle of the wheel Mr. Saloch says that the clock can run from three to ten years with a descent of only about a foot and a half during that time. — St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

The Old Clock

1895

Mr. Gratebar's Valued Friend Suffering From a Strange Complaint.

"Among our household possessions," said Mr. Gratebar, "is an old clock, an old wooden clock of the kind you hang upon the wall. Its constant ticking has long been a familiar, friendly sound. We have other clocks, flower clocks, with quicker ticks, chipper and friendly enough, no doubt, but their quick, incessant ticking makes them seem shallow compared with the old clock, which has a slow, dignified, measured tick. If you should be awake in the night, how easily you could tell it among all the rest! You hear at first but the chatter of the newer ones, but presently you hear back of them all, and growing upon the ear as you listen, the sturdy old clock, ticking on, calmly conscious of its own superiority and of its much longer standing in the family.

"One day the old clock stopped. We took it down and listened and shook it gently. It started up, and we hung it up again, but soon it stopped again, and then we took it down again and laid it on a table and looked at it and wondered what we could do next. It ticked all right lying down, and after it had been lying there awhile we thought that perhaps it had got over its little indisposition and was all right again. So we hung it up once more, and this time we thought it was going to go all right, and it did go longer than it had before, but then it stopped. So we took it down and laid it on its back again, and it's been lying so over since. Nothing that we can do for it seems to help it.

"When I wind the old clock at night, lying there prone upon its back and yet ticking away so bravely, my hand trembles. It has been with us so long — not through any very desperate vicissitudes, to be sure, but through life. It has seen the children come and seen them grow up to be young men and young women, it has seen our own hair grow gray, it has been with us always, and whether our fortunes waxed or waned it has been always the same constant friend.

"Well, well. Brave old clock!" — New York Sun.

An American Custom

1895

We Want the Correct Time and Endeavor to Get It.

Of course if you walk on Chestnut street and take notice as you go along — all people should have observing eyes — you will see men stopping to compare their watches with the chronometers in the jewelers' windows. And if you have traveled abroad I venture to say you never saw a foreigner so comparing the time of his watch.

The fact is this is a custom peculiarly American. We place more value on time here — our minutes are precious, we are so busy, so eager in the race for wealth — time is indeed money with us.

A friend of mine who goes abroad every season was chatting about this matter to me and said:

"Do you know that the Americans buy the most expensive watches? I was talking to one of the most celebrated watchmakers in all Europe on this very subject, and I was surprised to hear him say that his best watches — the most expensive make, repeaters and the like — were mostly sold in the American market. He said, too, that foreigners do not care for such correct time as the Americans. If their watches are a few minutes too fast or too slow, it does not concern them.

"I was myself impressed with the truth of these remarks by the watchmaker when, a few days afterward, I was in a railroad station in Paris and saw two public clocks four minutes apart! Another time I set my watch by one public clock in London and the next day found by another public clock in the same city, only a dozen blocks away, that my watch was six minutes slow by that clock! Yes, you may be sure that the Americans are the only nation who care for the exact time." — Philadelphia Call.

It's Nice to Get Up in the Mornin' When You've Got a Talking Clock!

1920

There's an epidemic of talking clocks in the country. Chicago and Philadelphia are the first to be afflicted and it's said that the disease may spread.

Vincent Pinto of Philadelphia has what, to all appearances, is a staid old grandfather's clock, but at times it does things that would surprise, if not shock, all of the younger clocks.

During the early morning hours, it behaves as other clocks have from the time of the first grandfather's. But at 6 it changes. First it booms out the hours — Bong — bong — bong — bong — bong — bong — then it shouts, being heard thruout the house:

"Six o'clock and time to get up."

Mrs. Vincent and her daughter Rose obey and an hour later the clock shouts up the stairs to Pinto and his son: "Breakfast is ready. Hurry down."

Warns Men of Their Work.

"Off to work, now it's time," the clock warns the men of the family at 7:30 and at 9 a. m. it informs Mrs. Pinto, "It's time to go to your marketing."

And so it goes, all day long, that nobody in the house may forget any duties. At 11 o'clock at night the clock, imitating Pinto's voice in its deepest and sternest tones, says:

"Time to go home, young man, it's 11 o'clock; time to go home."

Miss Rose's "young man" gets his hat and goes.

Pinto and his son built the clock and installed the talking apparatus after eleven months' work. Pinto made his own records, and he can change the clock's conversation whenever he wishes. It is rumored he sometimes stops the talking apparatus on Sundays and other days when he is at home.

Here's the Chicago Edition.

But Oscar Lindholm of Chicago, a machinist, declares that the Philadelphia clock is an infringement on a patent that he obtained six months ago. Lindholm has patented an alarm clock that yells instead of ringing.

The invention can be adjusted to an ordinary phonograph and the record is made to wake you in the manner that best suits your tastes and nationality.

If you're an ex-service man you may be delighted to hear the old familiar strains of "You gotta get up, you gotta get up, you gotta get up in the morning."

Or if you happen to be Scotch you can have the song that Harry Lauder made famous — "Oh, it's nice to get up in the mor-r-rning, but it's better to lie a-bed!"

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 5.

Antique Clocks

1901

A common trick of clock makers and repairers of years ago, when the craze for antique "grandfather" clocks first showed itself, was to alter the names and dates of the original makers on such of these clocks as came to them. This trick has made it difficult to prove the exact age of an old clock now, even by experts, and still more difficult to learn the name of the real maker. Reputable repairers do not follow the practice in these days, having realized that it results in the end in injury to the business. — Jewelers' Circular-Weekly.


Lions and Tigers

There is nothing odd or peculiar about the sleep of the lions and tigers. In captivity they show the same indifference to danger that they manifest in the jungles and by day or night will slumber through an unusual tumult, unmindful or unconscious of the noise. Their sleep is commonly heavy and peaceful.

Note: Interesting for the eye, the combination of u's, m's, n's together: "an unusual tumult, unmindful or unconscious."

Our Day On Earth

1916

F. E. Barlow, employee of Frankfort arsenal, Philadelphia, has invented a bomb, and offered it to the United States government, which is most deadly of aerial bombs, spreading gases over a radius of 100 yards. Bomb is six feet long and five inches in diameter, formed like a torpedo.

Webb Weeks, a young farmer, near Geneva, O, did not want to miss an early car to the county fair. His watch was broken. He slipped his alarm clock into the pocket of his overhalls so he could keep posted on the time. While he was busily milking a somewhat nervous cow the alarm went off. Weeks did not go to the fair.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 1.

Note: 'O' means Ohio; 'overhalls' is original to the article.

Clocks With "Wheels"

1901

"Clocks are certainly queer things," said the man who was tinkering at the hall clock in a suburban house the other day. "They get cranky spells just like people. Sometimes they really act as though they were bewitched. A friend of mine had a little clock that had behaved itself and kept good time for years. One day it took a notion to lay off for awhile, and they couldn't get it started again. My friend's wife was cleaning the room several days afterward, and she took the clock and laid it down flat on its back on a chair. It started to go at once and ticked away at a great rate, but as soon as she placed it on end it stopped again. Well, they set it, and for a time it acted all right as long as it remained on its back. But it soon got cranky again and refused to go. The other day, just for fun, they turned it upside down, and, would you believe it, that crazy clock started off again. Now it only runs when it is standing on its head, and they are wondering what new foolishness it will develop next." — Boston Record.

The Regulation of Clocks

1902

The remarkable pendulum experiment in the Pantheon at Paris to prove the rotation of the earth, strikingly illustrates the majestic uses of the familiar clock-maker's device.

It seems almost impossible of belief, in an age of well-regulated watches, that the clocks of Galileo's time could not be kept going at a uniform speed. Clocks went by means of a dragging weight, but the pendulum had not been thought of as a regulator. It occurred to Galileo to make a clock with the pendulum only, but of course, the work of turning the wheels stopped it. It was left to Haygens, in 1656, 14 years after the great astronomer's death, to combine the pendulum with the dragging weight and thus solve the problem of reckoning astronomical time with exactitude.

Small Alarm Clock — Ouch!

1903

A novelty in the way of an alarm clock has been perfected by an American jeweler. It is about the size of a hazel nut. It is made to wear on the finger. The alarm is not a bell, but a sharp pin, which pricks the finger at the time the wearer wishes to rise.


Electricity Saves Windmill

In Germany electricity, among other curious results, has rehabilitated the discarded windmill. At Neresheim a windmill applies power for thirty-six incandescent lamps that light a large paint factory. Another in Schleswig-Holstein keeps a steady current of thirty volts. At Dusseldorf a windmill winds up a heavy weight of which the descent works a powerful dynamo.

Old Ways of Keeping Time

1910

Devices That Were Adopted by the Egyptians, Romans and Early English People

As far back as history will take us we find that there was always some crude means of reckoning time. The clock is, of course, a comparatively modern invention, the first mechanical ones that would keep the time even approximately having been made in 1250 A.D.

The early Egyptians divided the day and night each into 12 hours, a custom adopted by the Jews or Greeks probably from the Babylonians.

The day is said to have been first divided into hours in 293 B.C., when a sun dial was erected in the temple of Quirinus at Rome. As early as 158 B.C. the time was called in the streets of Rome by regular public criers.

In the early history of England we are told that the people found a means of measuring time by the use of wax candles. It was reckoned that three inches of candle would last an even hour.

Among most of the nations of the north day began at sunrise, while among the Athenians and Jews it began at sunset. With the ancient Romans it began, as it does with us, at midnight.

Bagpipe Music Kills a Horse

1896

The important question of whether or not the bagpipes are musical instruments has been settled in the negative by a Milwaukee jury.

William Mattham brought suit against the Wisconsin Theatre Company for damages sustained by his horse taking fright at a procession headed by a Scottish piper in full Highland costume, who was waking the echoes with "The Campbells Are Coming." The sight caused the horse to rear and plunge and finally drop dead.

The foreman of the jury happened to be a German with decided opinions on the question of music. The prosecution sought to show that the bagpipe was not a musical instrument. In this the foreman agreed. He held that it had no place in a Wagnerian symphony, and was nothing but a "doodle-sack." In consequence of these views the jury returned the following unique verdict:

"State of Wisconsin, Milwaukee County. William Mattham vs. Wisconsin Theatre Company, ss. — We, the jury in the above entitled action, find:

"1. That the doodle-sack is not a musical instrument.

"2. That the said horse, being of a nervous temperament, was scared to death by an unearthly noise made by a friend with the aforesaid doodle-sack.

"3. That the plaintiff shall recover from the defendants for said horse the sum of $125." — Chicago Times-Herald.


Wouldn't Wind His Clock

A jeweler of Tuscola, Michigan, says that during the past year one clock has been brought to him seven times for repairs, and each time all that was wrong with it was that it needed winding. Each time he explained the cause to the owner, but after a few weeks, or sometimes months, the clock, being neglected, would stop, the owner would shake it, blow in it, and then take it to the jeweler, who would astonish him by winding it and handing it back. — New York Sun.

Good-By to the Train Boy

1901

Good-by to the train boy. On January 1, 1901, on two important American railroad systems, the experiment, heretofore tried tentatively, of excluding from their cars all peddling of popcorn, peanuts, cigars, newspapers, games, caramels, matches and magazines, was inaugurated and the "train boy" summarily done away with.

Against this innovation serious and urgent opposition was expected, for the train boy, with his wares, had come to be regarded, if not as a cherished, certainly as an unavoidable, incident of American passenger travel by railroad.

In the evolution of modern travel to its present point of excellence, the uniformed conductor distinguishable only by his metal badge, the loud-shouting brakeman, and car coupler disappeared, but the "candy or train boy" with his stock of peanuts and confectionery had lingered on, a burden to the patience of many travelers and an unnecessary survival of archaic railroading.


The Time in Spain

When the clock struck twelve on the dawn of the new century Spain inaugurated a change in the methods of computing time. Hereafter the clocks of that kingdom will count the hours from 1 to 24, instead of going as far 12 and then beginning all over again as they did the day before. The Madrid or Barcelona business man will rise at 7; go to work at 8:30; lunch at 12; quit for the day at 17; dine at 18; go to the theater at 20; reach home at 21:30; lunch 22:42; and retire at 23:30. —Exchange.

Sandglasses Still Used To Measure Time

1900

A Sure and Silent Timer

Strange to say, the sandglass is still used to measure varying periods of time. The size depends upon the purposes to which they are to be put. The hour glass is still in use in the sick room, and in the music room, in both places affording a sure and silent indication of the progress of time.

Half-hour glasses are used in schools, and fifteen-minute glasses are used for medical purposes, and the sandglass also goes into the kitchen as an aid to exact cooking. There are also ten-minute glasses, five-minute and three-minute glasses, the two latter being used to time the boiling period of eggs. The three-minute sandglass is called an "egg boiler." Sand-glasses are also used for scientific purposes and on shipboard.

The sand is carefully prepared by a thorough cleaning, including boiling. It is then baked dry, and then ground into the requisite fineness and uniformity, as sharp sand would be likely to become wedged in the opening between the two sections of the glass. The sand is then introduced into the glass through an opening left for that purpose in the end of one bulb, the opening then being sealed, the right quantity in each sand glass is gauged by actually timing the flow from one part of the glass to the other, and every glass is individually treated like a good thermometer. The glasses are usually mounted in cylindrical frames or holders, so that the twin bulbs can be seen at all times.


Why We Are Like the Crow

Aside from the special question of profit and loss, we have a warm side toward the crow, he is so much like ourselves, said the late Henry Ward Beecher. He is lazy, and that is human; he is cunning.and that is human. He thinks his own color is best, and loves to hear his own voice, which are eminent traits of humanity. He will never work when he can get another to work for him — a genuine human trait. He eats whatever he can get his claws upon, and is less mischievous with a belly full than when hungry and this is like man. Take off their wings and put them in breeches, and crows would make fair average men. Give men wings and reduce their smartness a little, and many of them would be almost good enough to be crows.

Mortuary Lore: Curious Epitaphs

1900

Clockmaker Expresses Hopes in Hereafter

Collecting epitaphs is not a particularly cheerful sort of hobby, but a well-known Philadelphia business man has acquired the grewsome fad, and is now thoroughly saturated with all sorts of mortuary lore.

Curious epitaphs find their way into print from time to time, many of which bear small traces of authenticity, and these are eagerly sought after by the collector in question, who inserts them in a book which he keeps for that purpose. His great pride, however, is in the inscriptions which he has seen with his own eyes, and copied from tombstones which have come under his own observation. He has traveled extensively, and it doesn't make any difference where he is, whether in an old English cathedral town or a "boom" city of the far west, his first question is, "Where is your most interesting burying-ground?"

While in England last summer he came across a couple of rather curious epitaphs in the old churchyard at Balsover, in Derbyshire. One read as follows: "Here lies in a horizontal position the outside case of Thomas Hindle, clock and watchmaker, who departed this life wound up in hope of being taken in hand by his Maker, and being thoroughly cleaned, repaired and set a-going in the world to come, on the 15th of August, 1836, in the nineteenth year of his age."

The following, from the same churchyard, is a curious instance of economy such as one seldom encounters — that of a man being buried in the same grave with his three wives, and with but one stone to mark their final and collective resting place. Following is the inscription: "Sacred to the memory of Margaret Armstrong, wife of William Armstrong of Balsover Moor, who departed this life Aug. 2, 1835, aged 33 years. Also William Armstrong, who died Dec. 10, 1862, aged 67 years. Also Ann, second wife of the above, who died Feb. 21, 1838, aged 28 years. Also Charlotte, third wife of the above, who died June 4, 1864, aged 42." — Philadelphia Record.

Some Good About All Races

1900

"The Bright Side of Humanity," a new book by Dr. Edward Leigh Pell, is said to be the first serious attempt that has ever been made to present the characteristic noble traits of all races. In the preparation of his book Dr. Pell examined one thousand works of travel and although all of them set forth with considerable detail the vices and disagreeable traits of the people which they profess to describe, only two hundred dwelt at any length on their virtues. To supply the compensatory high lights in these dark pictures was a happy thought and must have been a pleasant task.


A Little of Everything

A Chicago tobacconist hands every cigarette purchaser a neighboring undertaker's card.

In the Black forest district of Germany are 1,400 master clockmakers and 6,000 workmen.

A church bell has an empty head and a long tongue, but it is discreet enough not to speak until tolled.

The sultan has forbidden the Turkish war department to use balloons or carrier-pigeons for army purposes.

A French naturalist asserts that nightingales devour the drones of a beehive, and never attack the workers.

A mint is to be established in Canada for the coinage of gold. Heretofore the coining of the metallic currency has been done in England.

An official map of Vesuvius on a scale of one in ten thousand has just been issued, being the first since 1876. A new plan in relief of the cone has also been made.

Time-Telling Inventions

1914

It seems that the invention of clocks and watches was not the fruit of a single discovery, but was really a slow growth, side by side with many other advances in civilization, and of course the earliest clocks and instruments were sun dials.

The invention of the sun dial is generally attributed to a Grecian astronomer who died about 547 B. C.

The dial was followed by the hourglass, and this by the water clock, which marked time by the escape of water through an orifice. These were introduced into Rome about 158 B. C., but are believed to have been in use in Chaldea and Egypt for a hundred years previous to that date.


Ants Build Skyscrapers

West African anthills are veritable giants, frequently standing 40 feet high, says the Wide World.

These anthills are shaped something like a sugar loaf and are divided into hundreds of tiny rooms. They have, needless to say, myriads of inhabitants and these are all busily occupied in various ways, forming tunnels, making roads, gathering food and watching over the eggs and youngsters.

The natives are afraid to touch these hills, except from a distance, with firearms. The ants often make their strongholds around trees, and they are built very solidly, with sides sometimes 20 inches thick.

The inside is hollow, and at the top there is a sort of attic. The "royal cell," where the queen ant lives, is always found on the ground floor. This good lady is a prisoner, but is carefully fed by her busy subjects, the eggs she lays being immediately carried away and deposited in "rooms" set apart for the purpose.

No More Last Forty Winks

1914

Fiend Has Invented an Alarm Clock That Simply Insists on One's Rising in the Morning

It has often seemed, after the announcement of an invention to which the attention of the entire civilized world has been called, that the human mind could scarcely invent anything more and fashion it in material form, but the countless dreams of inventors continue to be realized in astounding numbers.

Every week, every month, the trade journals advertise and comment upon new things in the lines which they represent and publish new ideas which this material labor-saving age seizes and makes its own.

An alarm clock which awakens you with the words of a disgusted wife who has breakfast on the table, and a large vessel which carries submarines over long distances by means of a "pouch" are among the newest offerings.

As an ever present need, the alarm clock will probably be put into more general household use than the ship with the "pouch" for carrying submarines. In the evening before retiring you set the clock for 6:30; at 6:30 you will probably get up. Here is what will waken you:

"Six-thirty, six-thirty, six-thirty; time to get up; get up, can't you? Get up you miserable, lazy man. Get up, get up, get up!"

The first clock of this kind was exhibited in 1900, but it cost $2,500 to make it. The present offering costs $25. If you are awake in the middle of the night and wish to know the time, press a button and the clock will tell you the nearest quarter hour as: "Two-fifteen," if it happens to be 2:13 or 2:18. The phonographic record is on an endless belt and the grooves in which the voice vibrations are recorded run lengthwise of the belt. The belt continues to give out sound until shut off when once started. So far the clocks have been supplied with belts which talk in thirty-five languages.

Too Late — People Who Are Never On Time

1874

Some people are always too late, and therefore accomplish through life nothing worth naming. If they promise to meet you at such an hour, they are never present until thirty minutes after. No matter how important the business is to either yourself or to him, he is just as tardy. If he takes a passage in the steamboat, he arrives just as the boat has left the wharf, and the train has started a few minutes before he arrives. His dinner has been waiting for him so long that the cook is out of patience. This course the character we have described always pursues. He is never in season at a church, at a place of business, at his meals, or in his bed. Persons of such habits we cannot but despise. Always speak in season, and be ready at the appointed hour. We would not give a fig for a man who is not punctual to his engagements, and who never makes up his mind to a certain course till the time is lost. Those who hang back, hesitate and tremble — who are never at hand for a journey, a trading, a sweetheart or anything else — are poor sloths, and are ill-calculated to get a living in this stirring world.

Comment (2007): Yes, that is exactly true. It's not that I "despise" people who are always late, like the article says, but I don't care for the habit. A few minutes, maybe. But if you have an appointment, try to make it. I was in school and there was a classmate who was always late. Then it was his responsibility to take a few of us to a class outing. Since I'm a clock watcher and usually early, I probably would've been the first one there. But this nitwit, late as always, doesn't show up until way past the time he was supposed to be there to pick us up. So naturally we get to the class outing, a field trip kind of thing where people were actually going to meet us for a tour, way late. It's embarrassing. I actually knew then something of this guy's post graduate life and work, but only by hearsay. And what was it that I heard the people he worked with complaining about? Always late!

Why Sixty Minutes Made an Hour

1910

The hour is divided into 60 minutes simply because in old Babylon there existed, by the side of the decimal system of notation, another system, the sexagesimal, which counted by sixties. There is no number which has so many divisors as 60. The Babylonians divided the sun's daily journey into 24 parasangs, each parasang, or hour, being divided into 60 minutes. The parasang is about equal to a German mile, and the Babylonians compared the progress made by the sun during one hour to the progress made by a good walker during the same time.


Discouraging

On arriving at San Bernardino after a five months' prospecting trip in the desert two California prospector found that one of their packmules had developed a limp. An examination of the mule's hoof revealed a gold nugget, worth probably $50. The prospectors have no idea in what part of the desert the nugget was picked up.


Olive Industry Safe

There is little prospect of the olive industry of this country being overdone, for there are only three localities in this country where the olives will thrive.


Caterpillars Ravage Trees

Washington. — Shade trees of Washington, famed for their number and beauty, are undergoing an attack from a horde of caterpillars. The trees are being stripped of their foliage rapidly. So numerous are the pests that they have baffled the caretakers' efforts to cope with them. Property owners have joined in the attempt to repel the invaders, but it seems that there is little chance to prevail against them. Some fear for the lives of the trees is expressed.

A Remarkable Clock – Magnetism Runs It

1878

A Remarkable Clock.

A magnetic clock, invented by Daniel Drawbaugh, of Milltown, Cumberland county, Pa., is sufficiently remarkable to be worth description.

The magnetism of the earth, an inexhaustible source of power, is made to oscillate the pendulum; and the simplicity of all the works gives an assurance of the least possible friction. At a certain point the movement of the pendulum itself shuts off magnetic connection with the earth, and at another point restores the connection, thus securing the conditions necessary to produce its oscillations. The works are so ingenious and simple that it is no wild assertion to make that, were it not for the unavoidable wearing out caused by even the smallest amount of friction, the clock would run as long as the solid earth endures.

This clock is hung against a board partition, with all the works exposed, subject to the jarrings of machinery and obstructions from dust settling upon it, yet since March 1, 1877, it has been running continuously and uniformly, with only slight reported variations, as tested by transit observations at noon.


Whaling News

The American whaling fleet of 1877 was very successful. There were no special disasters, and no changes in the business worthy of note, excepting the continued additions to the fleet. Twelve vessels were built during the year. The present fleet consists of 187 vessels, against 172 on January 1, 1877, 169 in 1876 and 163 in 1875. The North and South Atlantic ocean employ over 100 vessels, while the more fruitful grounds of the Pacific ocean, Japan and New Zealand are almost deserted. The North Pacific fleet lost three vessels, and sixteen vessels came out with an average of 1,065 barrels of oil and 8,550 pounds of whalebone.