Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/707

 CLOACAE CLOCKS AND WATCHES 695 the ringleaders were punished, and the others pardoned. He returned from India, July 14, 1767. In 1772 his proceedings in India were made the subject of public discussion, and in 1773 a select committee of investigation was appointed by the house of commons. Clive suc- cessfully vindicated his conduct. The charge of fraud brought against him was rescinded by a vote of the house, and a motion agreed to by a large majority, " that Lord Clive had rendered great and meritorious services to his country." But for some time his health had been giving way, and to relieve his sufferings he resorted to opium, which gradually ruined his strong in- tellect. He had labored all his life under pe- riodic fits of melancholy, and in one of these he committed suicide. See Malcolm, " The Life of Robert Lord Clive " (3 vols. 8vo, Lon- don, 1836), and Macaulay's review of it (1840) ; and Gleig, "Life of Lord Clive " (1848). CLOM'/E (Lat. cloaca, a conduit, pipe), the sewers of ancient Rome. The trunk drain, called the cloaca maxima, is formed by three tiers of concentric arches overlying each other in contact ; the whole work is 15 ft. wide by 30 ft. in height. The masonry is of hewn stone, laid without cement. Along this subterranean street the drainage of the city, as well as the surplus waters of the aqueduct, discharged themselves into the river. The cleansing and repairing of the cloacae were confided at first to the censors, afterward to the sediles, and subsequently to commissioners entitled cura- tors of the cloacae, who employed convicts in the work, and levied the expense by assess- ment. Tarquin the Elder is said to have originated these works about 150 years after the foundation of the city, for the purpose of draining the marshy ground between the Pal- atine and Capitoline hills. Agrippa sailed through the cloaca maxima in a boat. Nero caused his victims to be thrown into the sew- ers. The cloacae yet serve in part for the drainage of Rome, and several modern cities are drained similarly. CLOACIXA, one of the Roman surnames of Venus. Pliny derives the appellation from the obsolete verb cloare or cluere, to wash, and adds that when the Sabine women prevented their relatives from taking vengeance on their ravishers, both armies purified themselves by rites before the statue of Venus, who was hence called goddess of purification. Livy attributes the appellation to the circumstance that the Sabine king Titus Tatius found a statue of Venus in the cloaca maxima, which he set up, and consecrated under the name of Venus Cloacina. CLOCKS AND WATCHES, instruments for mea- suring time. In early ages any device for this purpose received the general name of horolo- gium (Gr. apoMyiov, hour-teller), whether it was a sun dial, clepsydra, sand glass, or clock. As late as the reign of James I. of England, clocks were often called horologes. Until the 14th century the word clock was applied only to the bell (A. S. clucga, Ger. Glocke) upon which the hour, determined by the horologe, was rung. Even at the present day the clock of Wells cathedral is called the horologe. The most ancient of all instruments for ascertaining the time of the day was probably the sun dial, although for measuring intervals or stated periods of time water vessels, called clepsydras, may have been of contemporary use. It is commonly believed that the first form of sun dial was simply a column which cast a shadow of varying length and position. The earliest mention in history of a sun dial is in 2 Kings xx. 11: "And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord ; and he brought the shadow ten de- grees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz." As, however, the invention of the sun dial has been attributed to Anaxi- mander, about 200 years later, there is some doubt as to the meaning of the word which has been translated dial, for in the same passage the word degrees has the same derivation. But the instrument referred to could hardly mean anything else than a sun dial of some form, as otherwise the passage would have no significa- tion. At Rome, the first sun dial is said to have been erected by L. Papirius Cursor, 292 B. C. Another was placed near the rostra about 30 years after by the consul M. Valerius Messala, who brought it from Sicily during the first Punic war. The first form of horologe which measured time by mechanical means was the clepsydra or water clock, but the date of its introduction cannot be traced. It is be- lieved that it was used before the sun dial in China, Chaldea, and Egypt. (See CLEPSYDRA.) Sand glasses took the place of clepsydras in the early part of the Christian era, but the date of their earliest use is uncertain. The candle clock of Alfred the Great, and its conversion into a lantern by means of a translucent horn cover, by which he divided the day into three equal portions, one of which he devoted to re- ligion, one to public affairs, and the third to rest and recreation, is familiar to most readers. The time of the introduction of wheel clocks moved by weights cannot be fixed with any more certainty than that of clepsydras. From the time of Archimedes, 220 B. C., to that of Robert Wallingford, abbot of St. Albans, in 1326, many ingenious men have been credited with the invention. To Boethius (A. I). 510) has been accorded the honor, notwithstanding that it has been disputed whether it was a water or a wheel and weight clock which Pacificus of Verona, who lived nearly four centuries later, constructed, on the ground that the date was too early for such an invention. As, how- ever, Gerbert, who became pope as Sylvester II., did undoubtedly construct a wheel and weight clock at Magdeburg in 996, when he was archbishop, the belief that Pacificus might also have made one a little more than a century earlier is not unreasonable. But, however much the earlier history of clocks may be in- volved in doubt, it is certain that clocks driven