CURIOUS TIMEPIECES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1375, 20 October 1886, Page 3

CURIOUS TIMEPIECES.

In the year 1839 a transparent watch of small size, constructed principally of rock crystal, was presented to the Academy of Sciences in Paris. The works were all visible ; the two-teethed wheels which carry the hands were of rook crystal, and the others were of inetal. All the screws were fixed in crystal and each axis turned on rabies. The escapement was of sapphire, the balance wheel of rock crystal and the spring of gold. It kept excellent time.

A cariosity in the way of watches was shown by the director of Watchmakers’ School at Geneva before the horologioal section of the Society of Arts at a meeting last year. This wonder ia nothing leas than a watch with one wheel, manufactured at Paris in the last century. The watch was presented to the National Institute in 1790, being then in a deplorable state ; but the teacher of the repairing section at the school has, after many hours of labor, succeeded in re-establish-ing harmony between various organs, so that it is now in going order. It would take a professional watchmaker to describe the manner in which the one wheel is made to perform the whole duty of keeping time. A recent number of the Jewellers’ Circular describes an ancient musical clock now in possession of a citizen of Marietta Wls. “It is two hundred and thirtyfive years old and keeps good time The movement Is made of wood, lead and iron. The weight that runs the nautical part weighs fifty pounds. It plays a piece every hour, but it is rather hoarse at, present from o'd age. The dial is largo and has the paintings of Willi«m Penn, describing hia histoiy. At the top are five musicians dressed in uniforms, who raise their instruments to their lips as they begin to play. The case ia made of maple and mahogany; It was made In the year 1649, and was brought to America in 1847 by a party of immigrants, being the only timepiece brought with them ” A paragraph went the rounds of the newspapers some time ago, describing the novel invention of a Salt Lake jeweller. It is a timepiece ia Ihi shape of a steel wire stretched across a show window, on which a siuffed canary hops from left to righ - , indicating as It goes the bears of the dey by pointing with his beak at a dial stretched beneath the wire and having the figures from ope to twenty-four. When it reaohers the latter fignre it glides across the wire to one again There is no machanism whatever that can be seen, it all being inside the bird. The invertor says he was three years in studying it out. A novel form of clock has recently been designed by an English srtian. The face has the form of a tambourine decorated with a wreath of twelve flowers at equal dittacc a apart. These mark the hours, and over them glide two gaily palntel butterflies, oae larger than the other. These are the hands, the larger Indicating the minutes, the smaller the hours. The works are concealed behind the tambourine, and the motions cf the butterflies, which are made of magnetic metal, are produced by magnets cirrled on the arms forming the real hands of the clock. Another clock worthy of mention is exhibited in a well known olockmaker'a window in London. It is a framed and colored photograph of the houses of Parliament, Westminster, with a real dial let into the tower to represent “ Big Ben.” The dial is very small to match the photograph; nevertheless It is said to keep good time, —New Yo)h Ohsener,