AIR CLOCKS.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3551, 13 May 1880, Page 3

AIR CLOCKS.

Wonders will never cease. The'last idea is to record time by means of atmospheric* pressure, and a Pneumatic Clock Company has been started in Paris which promises to provide clocks and lay on (be time with as much regularity as water or gas. The charge per clock is to be fi'« . centimes, or a half penny per diem, and for this sum the company will supply the clock, set it going by air current, and regulate it exactly to observatory time. The invention is not entirely new. It was to be seen in full swing three years ago in Vienna, but it was only brought to Paris at the time of the Exhibition of 1878. The arrangement seems perfectly simple. Steampower is utilised at the hefcdquarters station to fill large reservoirs with compressed air ; this air is released minute by 1 minute, and under a slight pressure is directed into another receptacle wherein are the mouthpieces of the 1 yarious tubes leading, as gas or water pipes do, to all parts of the town. Rushing along these the air acts instantaneously upon all the clocks belonging to the company. It is claimed for the system that variation and irregularities will be reduced to a minimum., The air clocks are little likely to get out of order, their machinery being so simple and so entirely independent of those changes of temperature which affect metals. The Pneumatic Clock Company has the support of science it is said, and among its directors^ are to be found many of the most distinguished scientists and capitalists of France. *. Already these clocks are being established in the streets and thoroughfares, and there is every reason to suppose that they willshortly be generally adopted in hotels, places of business, and private houses.— Home News. .