Quaint Swiss Clocks

Northern Advocate, 27 March 1937, Page 9

Quaint Swiss Clocks

In Lucerne, on the Schweizerhofquay, there Is an attractive showroom where assistants and a courteous proprietor are delighted to show visitors a strange collection of clocks and relate the stories about them. It is from, this place that a story comes of a genius in Paris who is generally accepted as “quite mad,” but whose eccentricity takes the form of devising most peculiar clocks, not for sale. He, shows his ideas to friends, who are allowed to sketch, or even take photographs of them, and carry them home to put into effect if they can succeed in doing so. Two of these clocks seem worthy of mention. The first is of black marble, with a plain base, on the left end of which Is a beautifully carved pedestal a few inches high. On this rests an inclined plane, the right end of which rests on the base. At regular intervals written on the side of this, are the days of the week, equal distances apart, and on the top of the plane is a circular clock, which looks quite ordinary. It actually slides down the plane taking a week to do so, and giving the correct time in an orthodox manner. Each day it traverses the inch or so, allotted to that day, and at the end of the week the circular clock has to be lifted to the higher end of the plane to start again to accomplish its week’s work. For Garden Use. The second is for garden use in place.of a sun-dial. It is also made of marble, octagonal in shape, and plainly but beautifully carved. On the top of this marble base stands a disc shaped somewhat like a soup plate, an the brim of which are the usual Roman figures for a timepiece. The plate part is full of water, in which appears to float a small tortoise. In reality, this is magnetised, as are also the hands of the clock, which are underneath the plate. By this magnet, the two work together, and the metal tortaise is always pointing with his nose to the correct hour.