By 1500 the clock at Wells Cathedral in England was striking the quarter-hours, but had no way to mark the minutes. To measure minutes you still had to use a sandglass. A separate concentric minute hand, in addition to the hour hand, did not come into use until the pendulum was successfully applied to clocks. The pendulum also made it possible to indicate seconds. By 1670 it was not unusual for clocks to have a second hand whose movements were controlled by a 39-inch pendulum with a period of just one second.
