File:THE DRUM TOWER.jpg

English: John Thomson: THE Drum Tower of Peking stands a little to the south of the Bell Tower, and is also a structure dating from the beginning of the fifteenth century. When first erected it contained (so Mr. Edkins assures me) a clepsydra for determining the time. A clepsydra of this sort consisted of four cisterns, together with a little automaton time-beater, and I saw at Peking the remains of an ancient instrument in one of the halls of the "old Observatory. It is difficult to say where the Chinese obtained their water-clocks. Sextus Empiricus[4] says « that the Chaldeans divided the zodiac into twelve parts, which they supposed to be equal, by allowing water to run out of a small orifice during the whole revolution of a star, and then dividing the fluid into twelve equal parts;" whereas Beckmann[5] asserts "that this ingenious machine, which we know at present under the name of a water-clock, was invented in the 17th century;" and he was evidently unaware that water-clocks were in use in Peking during the 1 5th century. The Tower now contains a drum such as is commonly to be found in all Chinese cities, for marking the time, sounding alarms of fire, and similar purposes. Drums also were anciently employed in China in connection with state' ceremonials. One eight feet long is noticed as existing during the Chow dynasty, that is, about 2,500 years ago; the probable date also assigned by scholars to the ancient stone drums of the Confucian Temple, Peking.