Each of the six
smaller circles registered on a moving ribbon the indications of every
successive moment, these ribbons when unrolled forming a perfect
record of temperature, atmospheric pressure, wind, and so forth, in
the form of a curve--a register kept for more than 8000 Martial years.
Four times during the revolution of the great circle each large clock
emits for a couple of minutes a species of chime, the nature of which
my ignorance of music renders me unable to describe:--viz., when the
line dividing the green and black semicircles is horizontal at noon
and midnight, and an hour before, at average sunrise and sunset, it
becomes perpendicular. The individual character of the several chimes,
tunes, or peals, whatever they should be called, is so distinct that
even I appreciated it. Further, as the first point of the coloured
strip distinguishing each several _zyda_ reaches the golden indicator,
a single slightly prolonged sound--I fancy what is known on Earth as a
single chord--is emitted. Of these again each is peculiar, so that no
one with an ear for music can doubt what is the period of the day
announced.
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