The Fire Clock Several types of time meters appeared along the centuries. From the first Sun Clock to the most modern electronic clocks, are countless the courious models that tell the time markers history. As in the case of Clepsydra, where the water, lowering the level in a recipient by dripping, marked the hours, the Olive-Oil Clock also bases on the same beginning. However, the liquid, the Olive-oil it lowers from level when being consumed by combustion. The similarity exist, just differing in the way as the liquid decreases in its deposit. The Olive-Oil Clock was built starting from a tin lamp, with a crystal or a translucent porcelain deposit, that contained the olive-oil. That lamp, without wick, worked as an olive-oil common lamp and was fed by the oil deposit, which possessed an aspiration tube. With the olive-oil burns in the lamp, the oil level lowered in the deposit allowing to verify the continuous descent of the liquid. In the external deposit part, in vertical, there was a graduate strip, marked with Roman algarism representing the hours. With the lighted lamp, the oil level decreasing in the deposit marked the hours. These clocks, were used, mainly, in the night period, once the lamp was to illuminate the atmosphere. The Olive-Oil Clocks, presented a relative operation precision, considered reasonably good at the time. |
