Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/669

Rh Harland, Timothy Peck, and James Harrison—all of Connecticut. In those days an ordinary house-clock cost sixty or seventy-five dollars without the case, and this was because all of the works were made by hand. From these few clock-makers has sprung the great clock-making industry which supplies clocks that are sold cheaply, because the various parts are made by machinery. American clocks of this sort go all over the world, and even into the Black Forest! Fine and delicate astronomical clocks are also made in the United States. We hear of clocks that run in a vacuum, and which wind themselves; and of large clocks at a central point which drive other clocks all about the city by the force of compressed air. The latter are called pneumatic clocks. We also read of a magnetic clock which requires no power or force for its running save the magnetism of the earth.

There are many other clocks of American make that deserve to be mentioned, but we have not space enough to do so. We must be fair toward our own mechanics, by telling of three or four clocks that have been made in the United States. There is one known as the "Columbus Clock," because it was made by a citizen of Columbus, Ohio. The maker was only thirty years old when the work was done, and it had taken him eight years to complete it. The clock stands about eighteen feet high by eleven wide. It shows not only the revolution of the earth on its own axis, but also its position in its orbit about the sun. The positions of the other planets in their orbits are also shown. There are miniature models of the signing of the Declaration of Independence; of President Lincoln emancipating the slaves; and of the Strasburg clock. A wonderful walking-man is also one of the attractions.

Another American clock was made in Donaldson, Pennsylvania, by a native of Germany, who took seven years to whittle it out of a log. All around and below the dial there are groups of automatic figures. At the top is Napoleon, and the horse that is said to have eaten apple-dumplings. Both Napoleon and the horse (the automatons, I mean) partake of what are supposed to be dumplings. Then we have Captain Jack, chief of the Modocs, who summons his warriors by striking the hours upon a gong. Just below the dial Jonah is being swallowed by the whale, after having been thrown overboard from the vessel. In another part Christ is walking on the water toward a group of disciples that crowd the deck of a ship. Noah's ark, the "good fairy and the poor woman," and several other figures, go through their movements, while a music-box within the ease of the clock gives forth appropriate tunes.

The most remarkable clock in America, if we consider the place in which it was built, is the one that was made by a miner in the Hallenback colliery, at Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania. This clock was made out of bits of board and iron, and with the roughest tools that can be imagined. It was made nearly half a mile underground, and it occupied