Clocks and watches are often called "timekeepers," but they do not keep time. Nothing can keep it. It is constantly flying along, and carrying us with it, and we cannot stop it. What we call "time keepers" are really time measures, and are made to tell us how rapidly time moves, so that we may regulate our movements and occupations to conform to its flight.

Of course, you understand that measurement of anything is the comparing of it with some established standard. So that if you want to measure the length of anything you use a rule or a yard stick, or some other scale which is graduated into fractions of the whole standard measure. Do you know that the United States government has in a secure, fireproof vault, in one of the government buildings in Washington, a metal bar which is the authorized standard "yard" of this nation? It is a very carefully made copy of the standard yard of Great Britain. I believe that each one of the United States has also a standard which must agree in length with the government, or national standard. The same thing is true concerning standards of capacity, and standards of weight. But no vault can contain the authorized standard of time. Yet there is such a standard. And it is as accessible to one country as to another, and it is a standard which does not change. But, because all other time measures are more or less imperfect, our government tries to compare its standard clock with the ultimate standard every day.

The first mention of time which we have is found in the Book of Genesis, where it is written "and the evening and the morning were the first day." That statement gives a "measure" which was sufficient for the purpose intended, but there is nothing very accurate in it. If it had said "the darkness and the light" were the first day, it would have been just as accurate. The people who lived in those far-off days had no special occasion to know or to care what time it was. We may suppose that they were hungry when they waked at sunrise, and if they had no food "left over" from the previous day's supply they would have to hustle and find some, and if possible secure a little surplus beyond that day's needs, and so they would work, or hunt, until the "evening" came and the sun disappeared. When a man was tired, and the sun was hot, he sat down under a tree for shelter and rest. As he sat under the tree and looked about him he could not fail to notice that upon the ground was a shadow of the tree under which he sat. And as he was tired and warm he lay down and fell asleep, and when he woke, he again saw the shadow, but in another place. He noticed that the same thing occurred every day. He saw also that in the morning the shadow was stretched out in one direction, and that in the evening it lay in exactly the opposite direction, and that every day it moved very nearly the same, so he put a mark on the ground about where the shadow first appeared, and another mark at the place where it disappeared. Then one day he stuck his staff in the ground about half-way between the places of the morning and the evening shadows, which served as a noon mark, As the staff cast a shadow as readily as did the tree, the man found that it was really a better index of time than was the tree shadow, for it was much smaller and more clearly defined, and so he put up a straight stick in the ground near the hut in which he lived, and as the ground was level and smooth he drove a lot of little stakes along the daily path of the shadow, and in that way divided the day into a number of small parts. That was a crude "sun dial." (The Bible tells of the sun dial in the thirty-eighth chapter of Isaiah.) But there was nothing very accurate in the sun dial. Several hundred years later the days were divided into sections which were called "hours," such as the "sixth hour" (noon), the "ninth hour" (three o'clock), the "eleventh hour" (five o'clock), etc. There was, however, nothing very accurate in those expressions, which simply indicate that there were recognized divisions of time, but with no suggestions as to the means used to determine their limits or boundaries. It is recorded of Alfred the Great, who lived in the ninth century, A. D., that he was very methodical in his employment of time, and in order to insure a careful attention to his religious duties as well as his kingly duties, he divided the day into three parts, giving one part to religious duties, one to the affairs of his kingdom, and the remainder to bodily rest. To secure an equal division of the day he procured a definite quantity of wax which he had made into six candles, of twelve inches in length, and all of uniform weight, for he found that each inch in length of candle would burn for twenty minutes - one candle for each four hours. This was an approach toward accuracy and it was effective for night use as well as for the daytime.

*Courtesy of the Waltham Watch Company, and "The American Boy."

Assembling Department in a Famous American Watch Factory.

Perhaps the earliest mechanical time measure was the clepsydra, or water clock. It is quite probable that, in its earliest form it consisted of a vessel containing water, which was allowed to escape through a small orifice. Suitable marks, or graduations, on the sides of the vessel served to indicate the lapse of time as the water gradually receded. This device was constructed in a variety of forms, some of which employed some simple mechanism also; but from their nature they could not give very accurate indications concerning the passage of time. The "hour glass" was another form of time indicator, which was capable of uniform, though extremely limited, action. It is said that its original use was to limit the length of sermons.

It is interesting to note that discoveries and inventions, which may seem slight in themselves, sometimes form the basis of, or contribute to, other important inventions. In the year 1584 a bright young Italian was sitting in the gallery of the cathedral, in the City of Pisa, and as the lofty doors of the building opened to admit the incoming worshipers, a strong draft of air caused the heavy chandelier, which was suspended from the lofty ceiling, to swing quite a distance from its position of rest. This unusual movement attracted the attention of the young man, and as he continued to watch its deliberate movements, he did more than watch. He thought - for he noticed that the time occupied by the movement of the chandelier from one extreme position to the opposite point, seemed to be exactly uniform. He wondered why. It is the careful observation of things, and the trying to learn why they are as they are, and why they act as they do, that enables studious people to discover the laws which govern their actions. This young man, Galileo, was a thinker, and while some of his conclusions and theories have since been found erroneous, his thinking has formed the basis of much of the scientific thought and theory of later years. Galileo's swinging chandelier was really a sort of a pendulum, and we have made mention of it because it has been found that no mechanical means for obtaining and maintaining a constant and accurate movement will equal the free movement of a vibrating pendulum. This fact has led to its adoption as a means of regulating the mechanism of clocks. For, when operated under the most favorable conditions, such a clock constitutes the most accurate "time measure" yet made.