The phrase "a kind of clock" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when describing something that functions similarly to a clock or has clock-like characteristics.
Example: "The device is a kind of clock that not only tells time but also tracks your daily activities."
Alternatives: "a type of clock" or "a sort of clock".
I had gotten into the elevator after leaving the surgeon's office on the 10th floor, and the elevator floor numbers served as a kind of clock.
These ends, called telomeres, get shorter each time a cell divides and so serve as a kind of clock that counts off the cell's allotted span of life.
Halley took his observation a step farther and proposed that salinity of seawater could serve as a kind of clock that could be used to determine the age of the ocean (and thus, he assumed, Earth).
These atoms decay into thorium at a very precise rate through the ages, and the ratio of the two different elements in any sample can therefore be used as a kind of clock to time the moment when the calcite crust first formed.
Alexander also discovered that medieval stonemasons used to have their own marks for when they were working on part of a specific project, which would then be used as a kind of "clocking in" system to ensure they were paid for their part of the work.
All of this work is happening as a kind of ticking clock carries the reader forward.
So variations in a gene can serve as a kind of historical clock.
Through conditioning to time and by way of circadian rhythms, human physiology provides a kind of biological clock that offers points of reference for temporal orientation.
Telomeres naturally decrease in length with each cell division, acting as a kind of molecular clock counting down a cell's life span.
The more DNA differences there are between two samples, for example, the longer it must be since they genetically diverged; hence, they form a kind of evolutionary clock.
On the CTSS system, a predecessor of Multics for the IBM 7094, the lack of a calendar clock forced this type of measurement to be made using arrival of words from a magnetic tape as a kind of pseudo clock.
