Alexander says more than once that this machine was invented at Sens in Burgundy, in 1690, by Dom Charles Vailly, a Benedictine of the brotherhood of St. Maur, and that he brought it to perfection by the assistance of a pewterer there, named Regnard. This account is in some measure confirmed by Ozanam; for he says expressly, that the first water-clocks were brought from Burgundy to Paris in 1693, and he describes one which was made of tin at Sens. Dom Charles Vailly was born at Paris in 1646, and died in 1726; he was celebrated on account of his mathematical knowledge, though he is known by no works, as he burned all his manuscripts[206]. Alexander, however, who was of the same order, seems to have ascribed to his brother Benedictine an honour to which he was not entitled; for Dominic Martinelli, an Italian of Spoletto, published at Venice, in 1663, a treatise written expressly on these water-clocks, which Ozanam got translated into French by one of his friends, and caused to be printed with his additions[207]. This translator says that water-clocks were known in France twenty years earlier than Ozanam had imagined. It appears therefore that they were invented in Italy about the middle of the seventeenth century, and that Vailly, perhaps, may have first made them known in France[208]. It may perhaps afford some pleasure to those who are fond of the history of the arts, to know that Salmon, an ingenious pewterer at Chartres in France, has given very full and ample directions how to construct and use this machine[209]. He is of opinion that the invention is scarcely a century old; and that these water-clocks, which are now common, were first made for sale and brought into use among the people in the country, by a pewterer at Sens in Burgundy. What this artist affirms, that they can be constructed of no metal so easily, so accurately, and to last so long as of tin, is perfectly true. I have however in my possession one of brass, which is well constructed; but it suffers a little from acids. Among the newest improvements to this machine may be reckoned an alarum, which consists of a bell and small wheels, like those of a clock that strikes the hours, screwed to the top of the frame in which the cylinder is suspended. The axis of the cylinder, at the hour when one is desirous of being wakened, pushes down a small crank, which, by letting fall a weight, puts the alarum in motion. A dial-plate with a handle is also placed sometimes over the frame.