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OLD TOWN, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND.

View from Calton Hill, showing Edinburgh Castle and Sir Walter Scott's Monument (at right).

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Unique Clock in Berne, Switzerland The bear is the heraldic emblem of Berne, the capital of Switzerland, and it figures frequently in all sorts of ways and all sorts of places. The Zeit glockenthurm, the famous clock of the Swiss capital, which caps the arch of a street passage, is a very old piece. The curious clock on the west side of the tower announces the approach of each hour by the crowing of a cock, while, immediately before the hour is indicated, a troop of bears march in procession before a sitting figure. Nearby, Bruin appears with a shield, sword, banner, and helmet.

English and Scotch Clocks

Peterborough Cathedral has the oldest. working clock in England. This timepiece was erected about 1320, and is without doubt the work of some monastic clockmaker. It is the only one now known that is wound up over an old wooden wheel. This wheel is about twelve feet in circumference; and the galvanized cable, about 300 feet in length, supports a leaden weight of three hundredweight which has to be wound up daily. The clock chamber lies in the northwest tower about 120 feet high, where the sunlight has not penetrated for hundreds of years, and the winding is

CLOCK TOWER OF THE BRITISH HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT. In this clock is the famous bell, "Big Ben."

FAMOUS CLOCK OF STRASSBURG, GERMANY. Interior View.

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done by candlelight. The gong, the great tenor bell of the Cathedral, weighs thirtytwo hundredweight, and is struck hourly by an 80-pound hammer. The working and the striking parts of the clock are some yards apart, communication being made by a slender wire. This clock has no dial; and the time is shown on the main wheel of the escapement, which revolves once in every two hours.

Edinburgh, Scotland, which lies between two hills, has a time-marking device entirely its own. On one of the hills, known as Calton Hill, there is an observatory tower, on the top of which a large black ball is suspended. Across the valley, probably a mile away, is Castle Hill, surmounted by the historic Edinburgh Castle. One of the large guns in this fortress, pointing toward Calton Hill, is connected by electricity with the ball in the tower. Every evening at six o'clock,

CLEANING THE CLOCK AT WESTMINSTER.

the gun is fired; and at the same moment, the ball falls. The device sets the official time for all Scotland. It is interesting to stand on Calton Hill at the appointed hour, to see the simultaneous flash of the gun on Castle Hill, and the fall of the ball close at hand, while the roar of the gun is, of course, some moments in cross

"BIG BEN."

Famous bell in the clock tower at Westminster.

ing the valley. On the other hand, it is equally interesting to stand beside the big gun at dusk, to watch the ball on Calton Hill fall just as the shot is fired. A traveler, after seeing the modus operandi, wrote:

"It occurred to me it would be more exciting to watch the crowds of passing people, especially since not one was apparently thinking of the shot from the cannon. When the roar took place, absolutely without warning, hardly a yard above the heads of the crowd, the scene well repaid my waiting. Everybody dodged. 'Children screamed, and men and women jumped to the side of the wall. Of course, it was all over in a second, but in the meantime it seemed that an electric shock had passed through the crowd."

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"Big Ben"

Foremost among all the famous clocks of London, is that of the Houses of Parliament, where "Big Ben" sings out the hours to the busiest metropolis of the world. The dial measures 22 feet in diameter, and the minute hand is 14 feet long. There are four dials; and, as one stands inside the clock, it is easy to see the minute hand going around. The works take up a whole chamber; the pendulum is splendidly balanced, and hangs down into the rooms below, through the floors. Two men require ten minutes to wind up the clock's works, and this has to be done twice a week. But the winding-up of the striking apparatus is quite another matter, and occupies ten hours-five for the chimes, and five for the striking of the hours. The clock, as a timekeeper, has no superior in the world, its error being only one second in eighty-five days, or 4 seconds a year. The time is not regulated by Greenwich; but the clock reports itself twice a day by wire at Greenwich, and thus it is regulated. The chimes are struck by four bells, weighing respectively 80, 36, 30, and 20 hundredweight, and they are set to the following lines:

"All through this hour, Lord, be my guide, "And by Thy power no foot shall slide." The four bells ringing the chimes are placed in a square around the large bell, "Big Ben," which strikes the hours. Big Ben is 6 feet 6 inches high; his circumference is 27 feet: and he weighs 132 tons. He is not the original striking bell here, but the second, having been put up

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