QUEER CLOCKS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 97, 21 October 1926, Page 17

QUEER CLOCKS

The Vienna Museum of Clocks and Watches, one of the most interesting exhibitions of the city, has acquired sevfiijl new historic pieces which deserve attention. (says a correspondent of the London Sunday "Observer"). A new clock which hangs on the wall, 011 striking the hour, sets a chime of glass balls going, and one hears the hunters' chorus from the "Freischutz" —onevo£ the six numbers it can play. A "harp clock"—more than a hundred years old-^-plays a piece of music every hour with guitar effects, and a third performs old Vienna pieces on a little organ. A small watch imitates the voice of a twittering bird in surprisingly realistic fashion. Another, very small and complicated, shows the Gregorian, Jewish, and other calendars, the courses of certain planets, etc. Its mechanism has tiny doors, which on opening reveal tiny dialplates. The w*tch was produced by. a Styrian priest more1* than, a century ago; he had to carve all the tiny wheels out of brass. The work took 40 years. Herr Kaftan, the manager, of the museum, is trying to raise money to buy the "clock."