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Famous Walter Folger Clock Restored; On Exhibit at Peter Foulger Museum THE INTERNATIONALLY famous "tall clock" made by Walter Folger, Jr., of Nantucket, has been fully restored and is once more on exhibit at the Peter Foulger Museum. After being absent for six months, during which time it was in the shop of John C. Losch, in Holliston, Mass., where it was carefully cleaned and put in running order by that excellent craftsman, the handsome timepiece was brought to the Island on July 6, and promptly re-installed in the case, which also had been repaired, the work being done at the Mill Shop. Its dial cleaned and hands refurbished, the Folger Clock not only provides a handsome exhibit but serves as a dramatic ex ample of the skill of its maker. Walter Folger, Jr., was a Nantucket genius, and he constructed the clock works over a three-year period, completing it in 1790 at the age of 22. It is considered by experts as the most remarkable astronomical clock in America. The dial bears the name of the maker, and shows a gilt disk and a silver sphere which respectively represent the sun and the moon in their orbits across the sky, rising and setting at the exact time of their real counterparts, and moving in slots in the shape of the segment of a circle. The time of the rise and set of any heavenly body depends, among other things, on its declination — that is the angular position of the body north or south of the earth's equator. The sun disk in the Folger Clock shows the declination of the sun going through its annual cycle from 231/2 degrees north in sum mer to 231/2 degrees south in winter, and since the length of day light varies with the seasons, the upper slot is provided with shutters that adjust themselves in such a way as to make the hours of daylight correspond exactly with the real sunrise and sunset. The moon's declination follows a more complicated program, however, and the noted horologist, Dr. Arthur L. Rawlings, has stated: "It is doubtful whether anyone else, either before or since Walter Folger's time, ever designed a mechanism to predict it," Not only is the moon's declination taken care of by the mech anism of this remarkable clock but the complicated arrangement includes one wheel turning in 27 days 8 hours and another turn ing in 24 hours 50.527 minutes, but one turning in 18.6 years. Dr. Rawlings believed the ingenious Folger's mechanism employed the first application of variable ratio levers.
