There is no intermediate stage between the general use of clocks and watches and sundials, for their use overlaps. We have but to look at many an old church tower on which is to be seen the dial still operative--for sun and gnomon fail not--and the clock which has told the time for many years. Both were probably working before pocket clocks or watches became general and timepieces were to be found on the mantelpiece or sideboard. Brass was used from the commencement of clockmaking for wheels and dials; and wonderfully, too, the early clockmakers cut and carved the metal into the required form and gauged the works with accuracy. Some may be familiar with that wonderful astronomical clock in Wimborne Minster, made in 1220 by Peter Lightfoot, a monk of Glastonbury, who also constructed a clock for Wells Cathedral. In it, according to the early belief that the sun, moon, and stars revolved round the earth, the sun travels its appointed circuit every twenty-four hours, and by its position marks the time. In the evolution of the clock there have been many marked stages. The clock when first devised was a great stride from the sundial, the beautiful plates of which have already been described. Progress followed, and in a century or two clocks with wheels and complicated mechanism, which when once set going and wound up periodically told the time with exactitude, enabled the populace to know the time of day even when the sun was not shining. That was the age of decorative art, and many of the brass plates and dials were magnificent in their engravings, glorious in their beautiful old fretwork, and rich in brass cherubims and emblems of Old Father Time. Moving figures were in the early days regarded as ideal attractions in clocks. The two old figures which strike the hour and go through some quaint evolutions over the clock which for many years has been a great attraction in Cheapside, are typical of the figures which in miniature might have been seen playing on brass gongs and chiming bells in many towns in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They were in abundance in Norwich and towns in the eastern counties, seeming to reflect the old Flemish cities on the Continent, where they are even now fairly common. Collectors are very enthusiastic in their search for genuine "Cromwell" or lantern clocks. A few years ago they might have been found discarded on the old metal rubbish-heaps of the clockmaker. To-day these clocks, all brass in their construction, are polished bright, set going once more, and treated with care; good specimens changing hands for sums varying from eight to fifteen pounds. Originally they were usually placed on a bracket, over which was often a wooden hood to protect the clock. Then came a hinged glass door, and in that we have the origin of the "grandfather" with enlarged dial and rich oak or mahogany case reaching down to the ground. [Illustration: FIG. 85.--ENGRAVED POCKET CLOCK.]