The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1884-02-07
Timepieces That Are the Pride of
the Collectors Heart

Clocks-who has old clocks to sell,
since society is becoming the slave of
time?
Japanese bronzes and Chinese screens,
Queen Anne tables and early English
chairs have fallen from favor, and the
thing most dear and desirable" to a
| collector of bric-a-brac is an old clock.
Not only has it grown to be the cor
rect thing for every properly arranged
house to contain a revolutionary time
piece, with a coffin-like case and q
brass dial, but tens of thousands of dol
lars have been expended during the
last few months by residents of Phila-
delphia in gathering ancient and Curl
Gus timepieces. One of the largest and
most interesting Of these collections
has been made by Mr.. Watmough,
2114 Walnut street In the lower hall
of his house, at the foot of the stair
case, stands a massive French clock of
the last century. 1t is at least seven
feet high, upheld by two columns of
Spanish red ash and adorned with
bronze and brass repousse work. When
set in motion music-box within plays
twenty-four quaint old minuets and
rondeaus of the time of Louis XVI,
with an accompaniment from an in
visible harp and flute.
This is said to have belonged to
Marie Antoinette and to have been in
the royal palace at Versailles during
the attack by the Partisan mob in 1892.
In another clock of this collection the
works are contained within a female
figure, which changes its position from
one foot to the other, but the motion is
SO slight as to be imperceptible to the
eye, yet marked enough to move the
pendulum, hung upon a hair spring,
from side to side.
An unique design as to the form of
the dial is found in another time-piece,
it being apparently simply thermo-
meter, in the glass tube of which fine
silver rod, looking like quicksilver,
rises and denotes the hour by its posi-
ton opposite the hour signs on the
side where the degrees of thermo-
meter are placed.
Anothercurious little Japanese musi-
cal clock played what is said by those
versed in such matters to be typical
Japanese air, but which strikes the
hearer as fine old Irish jig.
A most complicated set of wheels
they must be which run the astronomi-
cal clock made by Hahn, of Neurvied,
Germany, which is the pride of Mr..
Watmough's heart and the crowning
glory of his collection. With it alone
to furnish the time and movements of
the heavenly bodies, mankind might
destroy all other clocks, telescopes and
observatories in general and still two
thousand years from now could see ex-
actly what position in space the planet
Venus occupies in relation to the earth
and sun and could tell the day, month
ard year, without the loss of q single
minute.
Among multitude of clocks made
of silver and bronze, of china and por-
celain, of wood and stone, of bone,
leather and ivory, which make up this
collection, is one the like of which
doubtless was never seen in America
before. 1t is in the form of large
alabaster vase, suspended from the
ceiling by three brass chains. Within
it are the works, sufficient room being
left in its center for two large candles.
Around the neck of the vase is a cop
per ring, on which are marked the
twelve Roman numerals, denoting the
twelve hours, and which revolves so as
to indicate the time as by their relation
to an upright, stationary bar, which
forms the only hand. When the candles
are lighted in dark room the hour is
clearly discernible through the ala
baster, as it hangs suspended half way
between the ceiling and the floor.
A German Baron on the Rhine 800
years or more ago had it made to keep
him company O. nights and frighten
away the ghosts of murdered friends
and relatives that haunted his arras
hung bed chamber on the nights when
Loud without the tempest thundered
And the castle turret shook