A fine clock, reminding a community of the lapse of time and of
the value of the fleeting minutes and hours, is an object of
much public interest. Some clocks have a particular historic
interest due to their long and accurate service in behalf of a
hurrying and often heedless humanity. A number of invited guests
were recently privileged to be present one night in Strasburg
Cathedral to observe the mechanism of the famous clock. For the
first time since its construction in 1842, the machinery was
called upon to indicate the first leap-year of a century, after
an eight-year interval. At astronomical midnight the levers
and trains of wheels began to move, the movable feasts of the
year took their respective places and the admirable mechanism,
calculated to indicate in perpetuity all the changes of the
calendar, continued its regular movement. The man who can
construct a great clock like that is indeed a mechanical genius.
(1942)
=Machine-shop Equipment=--See MODERNITY.