MEMORIAL HALL CLOCK STUNS LATE STUDENTS

Students hurrying to examinations yesterday morning were momentarily horrified to see the usually reliable hands of the Memorial Hall clock pointing to quarter of ten o'clock. The storm put both that clock and the Germanic Museum timepiece out of commission the night before last.

The hands on the big foursided timepiece of Memorial Hall were buried in ice and snow and refused to function. At 2.15 o'clock in the early morning the clock on the Germanic Museum gave up the fight.

The Memorial Hall clock is notorious for the ease with which it succumbs to the attacks of the weather, but the Germanic Museum instrument is of a higher calibre and as a rule has no difficulty in continuing its work with entire disregard of wind and snow.

Mr. Walford, a member of the carpenter staff of the University in whose charge the winding of the clocks has rested for the last ten years, told a CRIMSON reporter that when the wind blows from the north or northeast all the rain and snow with it is driven into the orifice in the side of the clock's face in which the axle of the hands turns. When sleet comes with the wind it is forced around the axle and when it congeals the hands must stop turning.

"Tomorrow morning," said Mr. Walford, "I will climb up the tower of Memorial Hall and pour a few buckets of hot water over the works and try and start the hands going again.

Every Saturday for the past ten-years I've climbed that tower too wind the machinery and I can tell you it's no easy job. There's a weight of about pounds which is at the end of a cable wound round a spool. When we wind the clock it means that the weight has to be lifted 100 feet. The bells are rung by a weight of 1500 pounds which has to be lifted the same height. As a rule it takes me nearly an hour to finish the job.

"In the summer it gets hotter than Dutch love up there where I work and as a rule I take off every stitch I have on before beginning to work. And then I get splinters in my feet. When there was a kitchen down below it was even worse.

"The floor used to get as hot as the atmosphere and the smells that came up were even worse than the slaughter house over on the other side of the river.

"The clock in the Germanic Museum is easy to wind. It only takes me about five minutes and I can turn the crank with one hand. The clock in Memorial Hall makes me use both hands and feet as hard as I can."

When asked as to the part his feet played in the operation Mr. Walford explained that he spoke figuratively.

"In the summer it gets hotter than Dutch love up there where I work and as a rule I take off every stitch I have on before beginning to work. And then I get splinters in my feet. When there was a kitchen down below it was even worse.

"The floor used to get as hot as the atmosphere and the smells that came up were even worse than the slaughter house over on the other side of the river.

"The clock in the Germanic Museum is easy to wind. It only takes me about five minutes and I can turn the crank with one hand. The clock in Memorial Hall makes me use both hands and feet as hard as I can."

When asked as to the part his feet played in the operation Mr. Walford explained that he spoke figuratively.