The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-08-02
WHAT'S THE TIME O. DAY.
Stately Clocks That Tell the Hour IN
Music
From the Nep York Star.

| great nrm OF Jewellers IN this city Is a Louis
| XVI clock, bought for a fabulous
( sum at the sale of the Duke
/ of Hamilton's n1a collection. In
the warerooms of the same establishment
are dozen like CLOCKS. but they are only
modern limitations of this antique wonder
/ 1t Is a marvel of gliding and enamel. The
! porcelain face is Powered, and about it is
! diadem of brilhants Its owner is in Eu-
rope, and he never trusts this precious clock
outside his house, except when it is sent to
be cared for at the great jewelers..
Antique clocks are rare in New York,
though from time to time an old Dutch
clock is brought in for repairs. In the
/ quaint valley behind the Palisades, where
some of the inhabitants still speak Dutch.
and at least one family only a few years
ago preserved the art of making wampum,
tall Dutch clocks have been ticking
beside rare old delft and other
antiques for perhaps 200 years.
Many rich New Yorker buys one of these
time-seasoned curios aud has it provided
with new works. The old case is preserved,
but compromising pendulum is added aud
| the Westminster chimes are put in. The
result IS a charming old timepiece that SEN
tinels grand staircase and sends ringing
through the noble mansion the sweetest of
churchly music.
New York is slowly becoming famous for
its tall modern house clocks. They surpass
the old Dutch clocks in everything except
| the one unattainable charm-antiquity
Step into this great wareroom, where, per-
hapS, q million dollars worth of beautiful
things are spread ont beneath your
eyes. There is a comfortable years
| income IN many a single article. In this
place you must always bear in mind that
the United States has many scores of mil
liOnaires, and that these rich and beautiful
things upon which lacor aud time and taste
have been lavished are purposely made
costly that men with millions may find
something to do with their wealth. Only
a few years ago the cstliest of these tall
clocks sold slowly, one at a time Now
they are ordered almost faster than they
can be made.
One man. a learned mathematician, makes
the calculations, and upon his figures the
clocks are built He will make a clock to
do almost anything you wish. Write your
prescript on and the medicine will be forth
coming. If you wish clock that shall send
out strutting cock to greet the Fourth of
July, it can be made. 1t will be Just as easy
to build one that shall greet your wife and
children with some special chime on their
birthdays. Write down in musical char
acters the chimes of Grace or Trinity, and
presently you will have a clock that repeats
them in little.
send forth singing birds and grinning
clowns and marching apostles are not made
here; neither are they imported, because,
apparently. nobody wants them. Here
though, is something quite as ingenious as
any such toy and vastly more useful. 1t is
a great clock of plate glass framed in
richly ornamented bronze. There are
chimes for hours and quarters, compensat-
ting penGulums and what not. These are
commonplace enough, but look at that
lower dial; the signs of the zodiac are
engraved on its surface, and a blazing sun
tips one hand. Another hand bears a
veritable round revolving moon, half black,
half silvcred. At a 81 nee you may tell the
local time, the right ascension of sun and
moon, the phase of the latter aud the hour
at the principal cities of the globe. If YOU
must have such clock you may buy it for
a little short of $4,000. 1t was a year in
building, and it took AM astronomer to
figure out ali its performances
Here are a dozen Ginning clocks, with
carved frames OF oak or rosewood or ma
hogany. There is one ornamented in E lst
India fashion. Here Is another whose whole
frame Is mahogany carved into chrysanthe-
NUNS, flower and leaf. Another has an en-
ameled dial and frame falling in graceful
curves tn t suggest some single great bios
som. Listen! the clocks are striking IL.
Three or four sound the slow, solemn, ex-
quisitely sweet Westminster chimes; some
loudly, some family, while Others strike off
the quick and almost merry chimes of an
other famous English cathedral Here is a
clock with a single weight. When it
chimes the running gear is automatically
wound.
Here is yachtsman's clock Two gilded
cupids bear on their backs a globe inc les
in diameter. belted with a b ass ribbon
upon which appear various numerals The
tolE fI,oAxv A,1Is
at any point of the earth, and the clock
strikes the ships bells from one Co eight.
Charles Croker had made here a great
clock, II feet high, for a magnificent house
in San Francisco. 1t was surmounted by a
big globe which indicated all sorts of things.
terrestrial and celestial, when the clock was
running.
One of the most curious clocks ever made
will soon be finished. A bronze figure four
or five feet tall, and alone worth $500.
grasps rod which runs through a hollow
brass globe, nearly eight inches in diameter,
and the parallels of the various countries.
The globe is engraved with the meridians
of the earth. The oceans will be colored in
silver and the continents in various hues.
All the chief cities of the world are laid
down. Over the bronze figures head
is suspended a plate glass disc, which
is a dial for indicating local time. None
of the machinery appears. 1t is all hidden
within the globe and in little pill-box
affair behind the glass dial The globe is
the ball CT the pendulum 1t swings back
and forth, and at the same time revolves.
A stationary belt alb Tut the globes equator
bears the figures of the dial, and iG will
show you the time of day at any city you
may name. When this clock is flashed it
will be marked at fancy figure, and the
builder says it will find ready sale.
Accuracy and beauty are the objects
aimed at by the builders of these great
clocks. You may get a severely plain one
without chimes for $50, or you may pay
$1,000 for one that will give you the year,
month, day, hour, minute secoud, moons
phases, and half dozen other things, to-
gether with chimes and rich frame.
When extreme accuracy is aimed at four
pendu.umS are sometimes put in. One cor
reefs the other, and you get an unvarying
clock. One of these has never been
half a second wrong in year,
and has been tested daily by
time telegraphed from the National
observatory at Washington 1t is a mis-
take to suppose that the works of such
clocks are complicated. They are extremely
simple. A wheel here and pin there pro-
duce the results. Sometimes the works of
an ordinary old Dutch clock are supple
mented with q few simple contrivauces, and
all manner of information is conveyed
thereafter. It is an easy matter, too, to
| build O ptOoly that shall ,.,tO for almost opu