A WONDERFUL WATCH.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 4 March 1908, Page 87

A WONDERFUL WATCH.

The Clookmakers' Journal, of Berlin, mentions a pamphlet which was published in Italy 45 years ago, and which had described the most wonderful watch in the world, an astronomical watch, made by Joseph Weid«nheimer, of llajcnce, in 1791, for the mayor of that city. The watch is 54- millimetres in diameter and has two gold lids covering a front and a back face. The front face shows the hours and minutes of the true time by the sun and medium time, the day of the week and the day of the -month. The watch is intended to bo wound up every day, but it goes for forty hours. In the front face one hand shows the hours, of which 2A are marked, the upper 12 marking midday, the lower 12 midnight. One minute hand gives medium time and another true time. The sun in its apparent course describes an eclipse, not a circle, and therefore our watches do not always coincide with the sun. Our true time is fixed by the sun passing the meridian, but our timepieces show only medium time, and they coincide with the sun only v four times in the year— April 14, June 15, August 31, December 23. Between times the sun is sometimes behind, sometimes in advance of the dock, and this is shown exactly by the true time hand, which moves on a curve constructed on a table- of equations. Another hand showa the day of the month, and is regulated in such a manner that in months of 30 days it skips the 31 and passes on to 1, and in leap years passes from February 29 to the first, in other years from February 28 to the first day in the following month. What seems more wonderful still is that when this hand is regulated forward or backward for months or years it always acts automatically for the February and for leap year. Another hand shows the days of the week, which are marked in Italian, while another is for regulating the watch when it advances or goes behind time. The course of Venus, which takes 583 daya 22hr 7min 6sec to get round the sun. Ie also indicated. When the Venus hand is behind 1 the sun hand then Venus appears as evening star ; when it is in advance it appears as morning star. The moon hand completes its course round the dial in 27 days 7hr 4-niin.