A post from Gunslinger87 about an earlier pic of mine reminded me about some of the water features located around the Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, TN.

This is probably the most interesting one in the park, a water powered clock which keeps track of hour, day of the month, month, and year! From the plaque (out of frame) this is appearently an actual piece which was built and used locally in the late 1800's as a time piece and was then brought into the park so this isn't some theme park creation.


It's a fairly simple but ingenious affair where a water wheel is kept at a constant speed by a ball governer which in turn spinds a series of ratio gears at constant speed via several chain drives. Having watched it during the day I was there it does keep time! The hour and month are correct anyway. I suspect the day of the month was off because no one in the park has adjusted it for leap years and the year dial only has 1800 dates on it.