James Arthur

Chinese and Japanese divisions of the day. — Hours of varying length. — Setting clocks to length of daylight. — Curved line dials. — Numbering hours backwards and strange reasons for same. — Daily names for sixty day period. — Japanese clock movements practically Dutch. — Japanese astronomical clock. — Decimal numbers very old Chinese. — Original vertical dials founded on “bamboo stick” of Chinese clepsydra. — Mathematics and superstition. — Mysterious disappearance of hours 1, 2, 3. — Eastern mental attitude towards time. — Japanese methods of striking hours and half hours.

The ancient methods of dividing day and night in China and Japan become more hazy as we go backwards and the complications grow. The three circles in Fig. 1 (Chapter I) are all taken from Japanese clocks, but the interpretation has been obtained from Chinese and Japanese scholars. The Japanese obtained a great deal from the Chinese, in fact nearly everything relating to the ancient methods of time keeping and the compiling of calendars. I have not been able to find any Chinese clocks constructed of wheels and pinions, but have a number of Japanese. These have a distinct resemblance to the earlier Dutch movements, and while made in Japan, they are practically Dutch, so far as the “works” are concerned, but it is easy to see from the illustrations that they are very Japanese in style and ornamentation. The Dutch were the leaders in opening Japan to the European nations and introduced modern mathematics and clocks from about 1590 A. D. The ancient mathematics of Japan came largely from China through Corea. In Fig. 11 are given the Japanese figures beside ours, for the reader's use as a key. The complete day in Japan was divided into twice six hours; that is, six for daylight and six for night, and the clocks are set, as the days vary in length, so that six o'clock is sunrise and sunset. The hour numerals on Fig. 12 are on little plates which are movable, and are shown set for a long day and a short night.

LOI

Fig. 11

In Fig. 13 they are set for short days and long nights. The narrow plates shown in solid black are the half-hour marks. In this type the hand is stationary and always points straight upward. The dial rotates, as per arrow, once in a full day. This style of dial is shown on complete clocks, Fig. 14 being a weight clock and Fig. 15 a spring clock with chain and fusee. The hours are 9 to 4 and the dials rotate to make them read backwards. The six hours of daylight are 6, 5, 4, 9, 8, 7, 6 and the same for night, so these hours average twice as long as ours. Note that nine is mid-day and mid-night, and as these do not change by long and short days they are stationary on the dial, as you can easily see by comparing Figs. 12 and 13, which are the same dial set for different seasons. Between these extremes the dial hours are set as often as the owner wishes; so if he happens to correspond with our “time crank” he will set them often and dispute with his neighbors about the time. Figure 16 shows a clock with the hour numerals on a vertical series of movable plates and it is set for uniform hours when day and night are equal at the equinox. The ornamental pointer is fastened to the weight through the vertical slit, plainly visible in illustration, and indicates the time as it descends. This clock is wound up at sunset, so the six on the top of the dial is sunset the same as the six on the bottom. Figure 17 shows how this type of dial is set for long and short days and explains itself, but will become plainer as we proceed. This dial is virtually a continuation of the old method of marking time by the downward motion of the water in the clepsydras and will be noticed later.

Figure18 represents a clock which is a work of art and shows great refinement of design in providing for the varying lengths of days. The bar lying across the dial is fastened to the weight through the two slits running the whole length of the dial. On this cross bar is a small pointer, which is movable by the fingers, and may be set to any one of the thirteen vertical lines. The numerous characters on the top space of dial indicate the dates on which the pointer is to be set. This clock is wound up at sunset, and it is easy to see that as the little pointer is set towards the right, the night hours at the top of the dial become shorter and the day hours longer on the lower part. The left edge of the dial gives the hours, reading downwards, and as the pointer touches any one of the curved lines the hour is read at the left-hand end. The curved lines formed of dots are the half-hours. The right-hand edge of the dial has the “twelve horary characters” which will be explained later. For dividing the varying days into six hours' sunshine it would be difficult to think of a more artistic and beautiful invention than this. It is a fine example of great ingenuity and constant trouble to operate a system which is fundamentally wrong according to our method of uniform hours at all seasons. Clocks having these curved lines for the varying lengths of days—and we shall find them on circular dials as we go on—must be made for a certain latitude, since the days vary more and more as you go farther from the equator. This will become plain when you are reminded that a Japanese clock at the equator would not need any adjustment of hour numerals, because the days and nights are equal there all the year. So after such infinite pains in forming these curved lines the clock is only good in the latitude for which it was made and must not be carried north or south! Our clocks are correct from pole to pole, but all clocks must be set to local time if they are carried east or west. As this is a rather fascinating phase of the subject it might be worth pointing out that if you go north till you have the sun up for a month in the middle of summer—and there are people living as far up as that—the Japanese system would become absurd and break down; so there is no danger of any of our polar expeditions carrying Japanese clocks.

Figure 19 shows a very fine clock in which the dial is stationary and the hand moves just as on our dials. This hour hand corresponds to the single hand of the old Dutch clocks. When the Japanese reached the point of considering the application of minute and second hands to their clocks they found that these refinements would not fit their old method and they were compelled to lay aside their clocks and take ours. On this dial, Fig. 19, nine is noon, as usual, and is on top side of dial. Hand points to three quarters past seven, that is, a quarter to six, near sunset. Between the bell and the top of the clock body two horizontal balances, having small weights hung on them, are plainly shown, and the clock has two verge escapements—one connected with each balance, or “foliot.” Let us suppose a long day coming to a close at sunset, just as the hand indicates. The upper balance, which is the slow one, has been swinging backwards and forwards measuring the long hours of the day. When the clock strikes six, at sunset, the top balance is thrown out of action and the lower one, which is the fast one, is thrown into action and measures the short night hours. At sunrise this is thrown out and the top one in again to measure the next day's long hours. As the days vary in length, the balances, or foliots, can be made to swing faster or slower by moving the weights inwards or outwards a notch or two. The balance with small weights for regulation is the oldest known and was used in connection with the verge escapement, just as in this clock, by the Dutch about 1364. All the evidence I can find indicates that the Japanese clocks are later than this date. In design, ornamentation and methods for marking varying days, however, the Japanese have shown great artistic taste and inventiveness. It is seen that this dial in addition to the usual six hours, twice over, has on the outside circle of dial, the “twelve horary branches” called by the Japanese the “twelve honorary branches,” thus indicating the whole day of twelve Japanese hours, six of them for day and six for night. By this means they avoided repeating the same hours for day and night. When it is pointed out that these “twelve horary branches” are very old Chinese, we are not in a position to boast about our twenty-four hour system, because these branches indicate positively whether any given hour is day or night. When we print a time table in the twenty-four hour system so as to get rid of our clumsy A. M. and P. M., we are thousands of years behind the Chinese. More than that, for they got the matter right without any such pressure as our close running trains have brought to bear on us. These branches have one syllable names and the “ten celestial stems” have also one syllable names, all as shown on Fig. 20. Refer now to Fig. 21 where two disks are shown, one having the “twelve horary branches” and the other the “ten celestial stems.” These disks are usually put behind the dial so that one “branch” and one “stem” can be seen at the same time through two openings. The clock moves these disks one step each night, so that a new pair shows each day. Running in this manner, step by step, you will find that it takes sixty moves, that is sixty days, to bring the same pair around again. Each has a single syllable name, as shown on Fig. 20, and we thus get sixty names of two syllables by reading them together to the left. The two openings may be seen in the dials of Figs. 15 and 19. So the Japanese know exactly what day it is in a period of sixty which they used in their old calendars. These were used by the Chinese over four thousand years ago as the names of a cycle of sixty years, called the “sexagenary.” The present Chinese year 4606 is YU-KI which means the year 46 of the 76th “sexagenary.” That is, 76×60+46=4,606. In Fig. 20, we read TSU-KIAH, or the first year. If you will make two disks like Fig. 21 and commence with TSU-KIAH and move the two together you will come to YU-KI on the 46th move. But there is another way which you might like better, thus: Write the twelve “branches,” or syllables, straight downwards, continuously five times; close to the right, write the ten “stems” six times. Now you have sixty words of two syllables and the 46th, counting downwards, will be YU-KI. Besides, this method gives you the whole sixty names of the “sexagenary” at one view. Always read left, that is, pronounce the “stem” syllable first.

Calendars constitute a most interesting and bewildering part of time measuring. We feel that we have settled the matter by determining the length of the year to within a second of time, and keeping the dates correctly to the nearest day by a leap year every fourth and every fourth century, established by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, and known as the “Gregorian Calendar.” In simple words, our “almanac” is the “Gregorian.” We are in the habit of saying glibly that any year divisible by four is a leap year, but this is far from correct. Any year leaving out the even hundreds, which is divisible by four is a leap year. Even hundreds are leap when divisible by four. This explains why 1900 was a common year, because 19 hundreds is not divisible by four; 2000 will be a leap because 20 hundreds is divisible by four; therefore 2100, 2200 and 2300 will be common years and 2400 a leap, etc., to 4000 which must be made common, to keep things straight, in spite of the fact that it is divisible by four both in its hundreds and thousands. But for practical purposes, during more than two thousand years to come, we may simplify the rule to: Years and even hundreds divisible by four are leaps. But great confusion still exists as a result of several countries holding to their own old methods. The present Chinese year has 384 days, 13 months and 13 full moons. Compared with our 1909 it begins on January 21st and will end on February 8, 1910. Last year the China-Japan calendar had 12 months, or moons, but as that is too short they must put in an extra every thirtieth month. We only allow the error to reach one day and correct it with our leap years, but they are not so particular and let the error grow till they require another “moon.” The Old Testament is full of moons, and even with all our “modernity” our “feasts” and holy days are often “variable” on account of being mixed up with moons. In Japan the present year is the 42nd of Meiji, that is, the 42nd of the present Emperor's reign. The present is the Jewish 5669. These and others of varying lengths overlap our year in different degrees, so that in trade matters great confusion exists. The Chinese and Japanese publish a trade almanac in parallel columns with ours to avoid this. It is easy to say that we ought to have a uniform calendar all over the world, but the same remark applies just as much to money, weights, measures, and even to language itself. Finally, the difficulty consists in the facts that there are not an even number of days in a year—or in a moon—or moons in a year. “These many moons” is a survival in our daily speech of this old method of measuring by moons. Just a little hint as to the amount of superstition still connected with “new moon” will be enough to make clear the fact that we are not yet quite so “enlightened” as we say we are. While our calendar, or almanac, may be considered as final, we must remember that custom and religion are so mixed up with the matter in the older countries of the East that they will change very slowly. Strictly, our “era” is arbitrary and Christian; so we must not expect nations which had some astronomical knowledge and a working calendar, thousands of years before us, to change suddenly to our “upstart” methods.

In Fig. 22 we have the dial of a very complicated astronomical clock. This old engraved brass dial did not photograph well, so I made a copy by hand to get clean lines. Commencing at the centre, there is a small disk, B, numbered from 1 to 30, giving days of the moon's age. The moon rises at A and sets at AA, later each day, of course. Her age is shown by the number she touches on disk B, as this disk advances on the moon one number each day. Her phases are shown by the motion of a black disk over her face; so we have here three motions for the moon, so differentiated as to show phase, ascension and age. Still further, as she is represented on the dial when below the horizon, it can be seen when she will rise, and “moonlight” parties may be planned. Just outside the moon's course is an annulus having Japanese numbers 1 to 12, indicating months. Note the recurring character dividing the months in halves, which means “middle,” and is much used. If you will carefully read these numbers you will find a character where one would come; this means “beginning” or “primary” and is often used instead of one. The clock hand is the heavy arrow and sweeps the dial once in a whole day, same direction as our clocks. This circle of the months moves along with the hand, but a little faster, so as to gain one number in a month. As shown on the figure it is about one week into the sixth month. Next outward is the broad band having twelve curved lines for the hours ending outwardly in a ring divided into 100 parts, marked off in tens by dots. These curved lines are numbered with the Japanese numerals for hours which you must now be able to read easily. These hour lines, and the dotted lines for half hours, are really the same as the similar lines on Fig. 18 which you now understand. As the hand sweeps the dial daily it automatically moves outward a little each day, so it shortens the nights and lengthens the days, just as previously explained for Fig. 18. But there is one difference, for you will notice that the last night hour, on which the arrow hand now stands, is longer than the other night hours before it, and that it is divided into three by the dotted lines. The last day hour, on the left of dial, is also long and divided into three. That is, while all the dials previously described have equal hours for any given day, or night, this dial has a last long hour in each case, divided into three instead of the usual half-hours. This is a curious and interesting point having its origin long before clocks. In the early days of the clepsydra in China, a certain time was allowed to dip up the water from the lowest jar, each morning and evening about five o'clock of our time, see Fig. 8 (Chapter 1). During this operation the clepsydra was not marking time, and the oriental mind evidently considered it in some sense outside of the regular hours, and like many other things was retained till it appeared absurdly on the earlier clocks. This wonderful feat of putting an interval between two consecutive hours has always been impossible to modern science; yet President Roosevelt performed it easily in his “constructive” interregnum! Referring to the Canton clepsydra, Fig. 8, we find that the float, or “bamboo stick,” was divided into 100 parts. At one season 60 parts for the day and 40 parts for the night, gradually being changed to the opposite for short days. The day hours were beaten on a drum and the night hours blown on a trumpet.

Later the hour numerals were made movable on the “bamboo stick.” This is virtually a vertical dial with movable hour plates, so their idea of time measuring at that date, was of something moving up or down. This was put on the first clocks by the Japanese; so that the dial of Fig. 16 is substantially the float of the Chinese clepsydra. Further, in this “bamboo stick” of 100 parts, we have our present system of decimal numbers, so we can afford to be a little modest here too. Before leaving Fig. 22 note the band, or annulus, of stars which moves with the month circle. I cannot make these stars match our twelve signs of the Zodiac, but as I have copied them carefully the reader can try and make order out of them. The extreme outer edge of the dial is divided into 360 parts, the tens being emphasized, as in our decimal scales.

As we are getting a little tired of these complicated descriptions, let us branch off for a few remarks on some curiosities of Eastern time keeping. They evidently think of an hour as a period of time more specifically than we do. When we say “6 o'clock” we mean a point of time marked by the striking of the clock. We have no names for the hour periods. We must say “from 5 to 6” or “between 5 and 6” for an hour period. The “twelfth hour” of the New Testament, I understand to mean a whole hour ending at sunset; so we are dealing with an oriental attitude of mind towards time. I think we get that conception nearly correct when we read of the “middle watch” and understand it to mean during the middle third of the night. Secondly, why do the Japanese use no 1, 2, 3 on their dials? These numbers were sacred in the temples and must not be profaned by use on clocks, and they mentally deducted these from the clock hours, but ultimately became accustomed to 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4. Thirdly, why this reading of the hours backwards? Let us suppose a toiler commencing at sunrise, or six. When he toiled one hour he felt that there was one less to come and he called it five. This looks quite logical, for the diminishing numbers indicated to him how much of his day's toil was to come. Another explanation which is probably the foundation of “secondly” and “thirdly” above, is the fact that mathematics and superstition were closely allied in the old days of Japan. If you take the numbers 1 to 6, Fig. 23, and multiply them each into the uncanny “yeng number,” or nine, you will find that the last digits, reading downwards, give 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4. Stated in other words: When 1 to 6 are multiplied into “three times three” the last figures are 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, and 1, 2, 3, have disappeared; so the common people were filled with fear and awe. Some of the educated, even now, are mystified by the strange results produced by using three and nine as factors, and scientific journals often give space to the matter. We know that these results are produced by the simple fact that nine is one less than the “radix” of our decimal scale of numbers. Nine is sometimes called the “indestructible number,” since adding the digits of any of its powers gives an even number of nines. But in those days it was a mystery and the common people feared the mathematicians, and I have no doubt the shrewd old fellows took full advantage of their power over the plebeians. In Japan, mathematics was not cleared of this rubbish till about 700 A. D.

On the right-hand side of Fig. 23 are given the animal names of the hours, so the day and night hours could not be mistaken. In selecting the rat for night and the horse for day they showed good taste. Their forenoon was “before horse” and their afternoon “after horse.” Japanese clocks are remarkable for variety. It looks as if they were always made to order and that the makers, probably urged by their patrons, made extreme efforts to get in wonderful motions and symbols relating to astronomy and astrology. Anyone examining about fifty of them would be likely to conclude that it was almost hopeless to understand them all. Remember, this is the old Japanese method. Nearly all the clocks and watches I saw in Japan were American. It will now be necessary to close this chapter with a few points on the curious striking of Japanese clocks.

In those like Figs. 14, 15, 19, the bell and hammer can be seen. In the type of Fig. 16, the whole striking mechanism is in the weight. In fact, the striking part of the clock is the weight. On each of the plates, having the hour numerals, Fig. 16, a pin projects inwards and as the weight containing the striking mechanism, descends, a little lever touches these and lets off the striking just when the pointer is on the hour numeral. Keeping this in mind, it is easy to see that the clock will strike correctly when the hour is indicated by the pointer, no matter how the hour plates are set for long or short days. Similar pins project inwards from movable plates on Figs. 12, 13, 14, 15, so they strike correctly as each hour plate comes to the top just under the point of the fixed hand. In Fig. 19, the striking is let off by a star wheel just as in old Dutch clocks. Clocks like Figs. 18-22 do not strike. In all cases the hours are struck backwards, but the half-hours add another strange feature. The odd numbered hours, 9, 7, 5, are followed by one blow at the half hour; and the even hours, 8, 6, 4 by two blows, or stated altogether—

9₁ 8₂ 7₁ 6₂ 5₁ 4₂.

Here the large figures are the hours and the small ones the half-hours. Only one bell is used, because there being no one and two among the hours, the half-hours cannot be mistaken. This is not all, for you can tell what half hour it is within two hours. For example, suppose you know approximately that it is somewhere between 9 and 7 and you hear the clock strike 2, then you know it is half past 8. See the large and small figures above. This is far superior to our method of one at each half-hour.