The Three Voyages of William Barents to the Arctic Regions (1594, 1595, and 1596)Veer, Gerrit de
History
The Three Voyages of William Barents to the Arctic Regions (1594, 1595, and 1596)
Veer, Gerrit de
Barentsz, Willem, approximately 1550-1597; Northeast Passage
“37. Iron clock-work, in which are seven cog-wheels; the cover is
of iron plates, but partly rusted. The dial-plate is lost, but one
of the hands is still present. There is also a circular-shaped
flexible piece of iron, quite rusted, probably the spring. In the
journal of Gerrit de Veer, at the date of 27th of October, he makes
mention, on that day: ‘They set up the dial and made the clock
strike.’ On the 3rd of December, 1596, ‘The clock was frozen and
might not go, although we hung more weight on it than before’. This
clock agrees in form almost perfectly with the clock drawn in the
illustration of Hulsius. A similar clock is also given in the work
entitled: ‘Le Moyen-âge et la Renaissance, par P. Lacroix et F.
Serré, Paris, 1851’. In the article ‘Corporations de Métier, par A.
Monteil et Rabutanz’, is found a drawing: ‘L’horloger, facsimilé de
planche dessinée et gravée, par Jost Ammon’. This drawing
represents a clock of similar construction to that found in Novaya
Zemlya. This print, in ‘Le Moyen-âge’, seems to have been copied
out of the work of Hartin Schopperus, entitled ‘Panoplia, Omnium
illiberalium, mechanicarum aut sedentariarum artium genera
continens; Cum figuris a Jost Ammon. Francofurti, 1568’. Hence we
come to the conclusion that the clock, with its weight, found at
Novaya Zemlya, belongs, as is proved by its construction, to work
of the sixteenth century. The application of the pendulum took
place later, in 1658.
“38. One of the weights belonging to the clock.
“39. A metal clock. This clock, with four perches, stood probably
upon the mechanism described in No. 37.
“40. A little iron hammer, without doubt part of the striking
apparatus.
“41. Three copper scales of a balance, having served for weighing
medicines. According to the journal of Mr. G. de Veer, ‘a
barber-surgeon joined the crew of Heemskerck and Barendsz’.
“42. A six-holed German flute, of beechwood, but without the
mouth-piece. It is broken at the end.
“43. A part of an instrument, of which one end is constructed of
wood. In this end is found a groove, a round opening, and a wooden
tongue. To this wooden tongue is fastened a copper one, opening out
in three parts, and ending in a point. It is difficult to say to
what instrument this belonged; but it is not quite improbable that
it has been fastened on the axis of a globe, in order to prick the
chart. Globes and plain charts were used at this period for want of
Mercator’s projection.
“44. A wooden compass card, with moveable wooden hand, in the
centre of which is found a round opening for the point of the axis.
“45. A wooden rectangle, with three circular segments one within
the other, and subtending the rectangle. The longer arm is broken
in three pieces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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