The Water Clock The Sun clock no longer satisfied more the man’s needs due to its restricted operation. The absolute need of the sunbeam presence so that those clocks indicated the hours, became its limited. During the night and in the cloudy days, the clock did not have utility. This, forced the man seek for new mechanism to allow him to have control over the time. For that, improved his techniques taking advantage of another perenial natural force: the water. The drainage of the liquid of one reservoir with a small orifice in the base, from a superior level to an inferior, and the regularity of the liquid "transfusion" to another recipient, gave to the man the beginning that allowed to create a new class of time meter. Hydraulic clock, it was the first name given to those instruments. When it became known by the Greeks, received the name of Clepsydra. There are historians that present Plato as the author of the oldest Clepsydra, this about 400 B.C.. |
