I am aware of your complaints, O star-loving reader--that my description is too meager and too succinct. Lay the blame for this on those cares, hateful both to me and to you, more pressing, which forbid me and deprive you of a methodical explanation of the work. THE CLOCK MOVEMENT Father Borghesi specified that the entire mechanism was equal in weight to a seventh part of a _Centenarii Germanici_, a Germanic hundredweight. This is probably the Austrian centner which is equivalent to 123.4615 pounds. Therefore, the clock mechanism weighs approximately 17.6 pounds. The clock operated for a hundred days and more at a single winding, according to Father Borghesi, and by means of a pendulum with a leaden bob weighing 60 Viennese pounds, attached at a height of 5 feet. Father Borghesi stated the weight of the pendulum to be 60 _librarum Viennensium_, but the Viennese libra does not appear among the weights of the Austrian Empire. However, using the average libra, an ancient Roman unit of weight equal to 0.7221 pound, it may be assumed that the driving weight should be approximately 45 pounds. Father Borghesi, however, does not venture to provide any description whatsoever of the movement of his second clock in his book. He gave the following reasons: But beyond this, I entirely omit [a description of] the further apparatus of the very many wheels, etc., inside the clock which carry on its functions, lest I become too verbose for some persons. To explain more thoroughly the internal labyrinth of the entire mechanism, from which the movement of the circles or heavens, etc., are derived, would seem to entangle in too many complicated perplexities.... Therefore, that I might not delay longer, and perhaps to no purpose, I have thought it better to leave the whole work to the proportionate calculus of the arithmeticians and the technical skill of mechanics. If they have any desire to construct a similar mechanism, they will follow the aforesaid motions of the heavens, etc., not only by one means alone but by many, more swiftly through thoughtful study than by any amount of instruction. For whoever is well versed in the theory of calculus and sets to work at any given project, will discover any desired motion by a thousand and more ways, by one or another gearing of wheels; which an industrious mechanic will carry out in actuality and without too much difficulty. Nor is there any reason for anyone to be discouraged, so long as he is not disgusted by the amount of labor for there is nothing truer than the old saying "The favorable gods grant everything to the assiduous laborer."