Being thanked
for this also, he presented an excellent pendulum clock of his own
making, to be placed over his Majesty's arms upon the principal gate
of the dockyard, with a bell above the clock to strike the hours of
the day, as well as to summon the men to their work; and two more
dials, the one for the new town-hall, the other for the almshouses
near St. Helen's Port. Again the Corporation thanked him as
profusely as before, but asked him to be at the expense of affixing
these dials, which, both by their beauty and number, were rapidly
making Harwich unique among towns of its size. Upon this Captain
Runacles, in a huff, forswore all further munificence, and applied
himself to the construction of a pair of compasses capable of
dividing an inch into a thousand parts, and to the sinking of a well
in the marsh behind his pavilion. The design of this well was
extremely ingenious. It was worked by means of a wheel, nine feet in
diameter, with steps in its circumference like those of a treadmill,
and so weighted that by walking upon it, as if up a flight of stairs,
a person of eleven or twelve stone would draw up a bucket--two
buckets being so hung, at the ends of a rope surrounding the wheel,
that while one ascended, full of water, the other, which was empty,
sank down and was refilled.
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