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hours, at least as early as the twelfth century,[1] whereas such clocks were, as far as can be ascertained, not introduced into Europe till nearly two centuries later,[2] to say nothing of the probability (supported by no despicable arguments) of their having been the first to apply the principle of the pendulum to horology,[3] it seems only reasonable to suppose that they invented watches (or portable clocks) at a proportionately early period, say at the end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century. Abdallah ben Fazil and his Brothers (apparently a modern and greatly improved version or adaptation of the Eldest Lady’s Story in Vol. I.) is also a story of non-Chaldæan authorship, as is manifest from mistakes such as the supposing El Kerkh (the well-known principal quarter of Baghdad) to be a city on the Euphrates, and the use of Egyptian words (such as derfil for dukhes, dolphin) stamps it as of Egyptian origin, whilst the mention of coffee establishes its comparative modernity. The same remarks apply to Ali Noureddin and the Frank King’s daughter and the Haunted House in Baghdad, in both of which
- ↑ By the early part of the thirteenth century they had brought weight-clocks to great perfection, as is evident from (inter alia) the account given by Trithemius of the elaborate astronomical “horologe” presented by the Eyoubite Sultan El Melik el Kamil of Egypt to the Emperor Frederick II. in the year 1232, and which not only struck the hours and told the day, month and year, but (like the Strasburg machine) showed the phases of the sun and moon and the revolutions of the other planets.
- ↑ It seems doubtful whether the statement that a clock was in 1288 erected at Westminster can be received as authentic.
- ↑ This invention is generally ascribed to Richard Harris, A.D. 1641.
