SINGULAR CLOCKS.
In an answer to a correspondent who asks, "What is the most curious material out of which a time-piece has been made," a London journal prints the following rather interesting item:
Bread, we think, is the most curious material out of which a clock has ever been constructed. There was, and may still be, in Milan a clock made of bread. The maker was a native of Milan, who devoted three years of his time to the task. He was very poor, and being without means to purchase the necessary metal for the making of a clock, he sat apart regularly a portion of his bread each day, eating the crust and saving the soft part. To solidify this he made use of a certain salt, and when the various pieces were dry they became perfectly hard and insoluble in water. The clock was of good size, and kept fair time.
Another strange clock was exhibited some years ago in Liverpool. It was constructed of pins, buttons, and all sorts of odds and ends by a pauper named Mercer. The maker of this extraordinary time-piece thus describes it himself: The back and the front of the clock were made from iron bed-laths, while the barrel was part of a large brass ferule, the ends being brass buttons hammered out. The barrel arbor had originally been the blade of a shoe-maker's awl; the main and several other wheels were nothing more nor less than suspender buttons from the maker's own trousers, while the cog teeth were portions of bygone knitting-needles. The teeth of the centre wheels had been boot-rivets. In the dial there were one hundred separate pieces.