The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical Part 15

Machines in a watch factory will cut screws with 589 threads to an inch.

These threads are invisible to the naked eye, and it takes 144,000 of the screws to make a pound. A pound of them is worth six pounds of pure gold. Lay one of them upon a piece of white paper, and it looks like a tiny steel filing.

_Ancient Dials._

The dial in use among the ancient Jews differed from that in use among us. Theirs was a kind of stairs; the time of the day was distinguished, not by lines, but by steps or degrees; the shade of the sun every hour moved forward to a new degree. On the dial of Ahaz, the sun went back _degrees_ or _steps_, not _lines_.

_Skull Watches._

Diana of Poictiers, the mistress of Henry II., being a widow, the courtiers of the period, to ingratiate themselves in her favor, used to present her with watches in such shapes as coffins, skulls, etc., and it became the fas.h.i.+on to have them made in this lugubrious style. Mary, Queen of Scots, is said to have had several, and she gave one to Mary Letown, in 1587, which is still in existence. It was made by Moyse, of Blois, France, and has been thus described:-

"The watch has a silver casing in the form of a skull, which separates at the jaws so as to expose the dial, which is also of silver, occupying about the position of the palate, and is fixed in a golden circle, with the hours in Roman letters. The movement appropriately occupies the place of the brains, but is enclosed in a bell, filling the hollow of the skull, which bell is struck by the hammer to sound the hours. The case is highly ornamented with fine engravings, showing on the front of the skull Death standing between a cottage and a palace; in the rear is Time devouring all things; on one side of the upper part of the skull are Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, with the serpent tempting Eve; on the opposite side is the Crucifixion. Inside, on the plate or lid, is the Holy Family in the stable, with the infant Saviour in the manger, and angels ministering to him. In the distance are the Shepherds with their flocks, etc." The works are said to be in good order and to perform astonis.h.i.+ngly well.

_Book-Shaped Watch._

One of the choicest rarities of the Bernal collection is a book-shaped watch. It was made for Bogislaus XIV., Duke of Pomerania, in the time of Gustavus Adolphus. On the dial-side there is an engraved inscription of the duke and his t.i.tles, with the date 1627, and the engraving of his armorial bearings; on the back of the case there are engraved two male portraits, buildings, &c. The watch has apparently two separate movements, and a large bell; at the back, over the bell, the metal is ornamentally pierced in a circle, with a dragon and other devices. It bears the maker's name, "Dionistus Hessichti."

_Cruciform Watch._

In the family of Lady Fitzgerald, of England, there is a cruciform watch made in 1770, and covered with elaborate drawings of a delicate character. The centre of the dial-plate has a representation of Christ's agony in the garden, the outer compartments being occupied by the emblems of the pa.s.sion, and the lowermost by a figure of Faith.

_Miniature Time-Piece._

The time-piece carried by Louis XIV. of France was so small that it was set in one of that luxurious monarch's finger-rings.

_Resurrection Watch._

During the reign of Catherine II. of Russia, Kalutin, a peasant, made a musical repeating watch about the size of an egg, which had within it a representation of Christ's tomb, with sentinels on guard. On pressing a spring the stone would be rolled from the tomb, the angels appear, the holy women enter the sepulchre, and the same chant which is sung in the Greek Church on Easter eve accurately performed. The watch is now in the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg.

_Borrowing Watches._

Watches were so rarely in use in the early time of James I. that it was deemed a cause of suspicion that one was found, in 1605, upon Guy Vaux.

Jonson, in his "Alchemist," tells of the loan of one to wear on a particular occasion-

And I had lent my watch last night to one That dines to-day at the sheriff's.

_Striking Watches._

Hon. Mr. Barrington mentions that a thief was detected by watches called "strikers," which he says were introduced in the reign of Charles II.; but repeating watches were worn in the time of Ben Jonson. In his "Staple of News," we read-

-It strikes! one, two, Three, four, five, six. Enough, enough, dear watch, Thy pulse hath beat enough. Now stop and rest; Would thou couldst make the time to do so too; I'll wind thee up no more.

_Too Many Watches._

Watches were very common in 1638. It is complained in the "Antipodes," a comedy of that year, that

-Every clerk can carry The time of day in his pocket.

On which account a projector in the same play proposes to diminish the grievance by a

-Project against The multiplicity of pocket watches.

_Wearing Two Watches._

About 1770 it became the fas.h.i.+on to wear two watches. In a rhyming recipe of that date, "To Make a Modern Fop," appear the lines-

"A lofty cane, a sword with silver hilt, A ring, _two watches_ and a snuff-box gilt."

The ladies soon adopted the fas.h.i.+on, but as watches were still very expensive, mock watches were often subst.i.tuted.

_Minute Mechanisms._

There is a cherry stone at the Salem (Ma.s.s.) Museum which contains one dozen silver spoons. The stone itself is of the ordinary size, but the spoons are so small that their shape and finish can only be distinguished by the microscope. Dr. Oliver gives an account of a cherry stone on which were carved one hundred and twenty-four heads, so distinctly that the naked eye could distinguish those belonging to popes and kings by their mitres and crowns. It was bought in Prussia for fifteen thousand dollars, and thence conveyed to England, where it was considered an object of so much value that its possession was disputed, and it became the subject of a suit in chancery. One of the Nuremberg toy-makers enclosed in a cherry stone, which was exhibited at the French Crystal Palace, a plan of Sevastopol, a railway station, and the "Messiah" of Klopstock. In more remote times, an account is given of an ivory chariot, constructed by Mermecides, which was so small that a fly could cover it with its wing; also a s.h.i.+p of the same material, which could be hidden under the wing of a bee. Pliny tells us that Homer's Iliad, with its fifteen thousand verses, was written in so small a s.p.a.ce as to be contained in a nutsh.e.l.l; while Elian mentions an artist who wrote a distich in letters of gold, which he enclosed in the rind of a kernel of corn. But the Harleian MS. mentions a greater curiosity than any of the former, it being nothing more nor less than the Bible, written by one Peter Bales, a chancery clerk, in so small a book that it could be enclosed within the sh.e.l.l of an English walnut. There is a drawing of the head of Charles II. in the library of St. John's College, Oxford, wholly composed of minutely written characters, which at a short distance resemble the lines of an ordinary engraving. The head and ruff are said to contain the book of Psalms, in Greek, and the Lord's Prayer.-_Bombaugh._

_Wonderful Lock._

Among the wonderful products of art in the French Crystal Palace was shown a lock which admitted of 3,674,385 combinations. Heuret spent one hundred and twenty nights in locking it; Fichet was four months in unlocking it; afterwards they could neither shut nor open it.

_Roman Stamp._

This curiosity is preserved in the British Museum. It is the very earliest specimen of printing by means of ink or any similar substance.

It is made of metal, a sort of Roman bra.s.s, the ground of which is covered with a green kind of verdigris rust with which antique medals are usually covered. The letters rise flush up to the elevation of the exterior rim which surrounds it. Its dimensions are about two inches long by one inch broad. At the back of it is a small ring for the finger, to make it more convenient to hold. As no person of the name which is inscribed upon it is mentioned in Roman history, he is, therefore, supposed to have been a functionary of some Roman officer, or private steward, who, perhaps, used this stamp to save himself the trouble of writing his name.

_Talisman of Charlemagne._

The Emperor Napoleon III., when Prince Louis Napoleon, was stated to be in possession of the talisman of Charlemagne to which allusion is frequently made in traditional history. This curious object of vertu is mentioned in the Parisian journals as _la plus belle relique de l'Europe_, and it certainly has excited considerable interest in the archaeological and religious circles on the continent. The talisman is of fine gold, of a round form, set with gems, and in the centre are two rough sapphires and a portion of the Holy Cross, besides other relics brought from the Holy Land. This was found round the neck of Charlemagne on the opening of his tomb, and given by the town of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) to Bonaparte, and by him to his favorite Hortense, _ci-devant_ Queen of Holland, at whose death it descended to her son Prince Louis, the late Emperor of the French.

_The Black Stone at Mecca._

Near the entrance of the Kaaba, at Mecca, is the famous Black Stone, called by the Moslems _Hajra el a.s.souad_, or Heavenly Stone. It forms a part of the sharp angle of the building, and is inserted four or five feet above the ground. It is an irregular oval, and is about seven inches in diameter. Its color is now a deep reddish brown, approaching to black, and it is surrounded by a border of nearly the same color, resembling a cement of pitch and gravel, and from two to three inches in breadth. Both the border and the stone itself are encircled by a silver band, swelling to a considerable breadth below, where it is studded with nails of the same metal. The surface is undulated, and seems composed of about a dozen smaller stones, of different sizes and shapes, but perfectly smooth, and well joined with a small quant.i.ty of cement. It looks as if the whole had been dashed into many pieces by a severe concussion, and then re-united-an appearance that may perhaps be explained by the various disasters to which it has been exposed. During the fire that occurred in the time of Yezzid I. (A. D. 682), the violent heat split it into three pieces; and when the fragments were replaced, it was necessary to surround them with a rim of silver, which is said to have been renewed by Haroun-al-Raschid. It was in two pieces when the Karmathians carried it away, it having been broken by a blow from a soldier during the plunder of Mecca. Hakem, a mad Sultan of Egypt, in the eleventh century, attempted, while on a pilgrimage, to destroy it with an iron club which he had concealed under his clothes, but was prevented and slain by the populace. After that accident it remained unmolested until 1674, when it was found one morning besmeared with dirt, so that every one who kissed it returned with a sullied face. As for the quality of the stone, it does not seem to be accurately determined. Burckhardt says it appeared to him like a lava containing several small extraneous particles of a whitish and yellowish substance.

Ali Bey calls it a fragment of volcanic basalt, sprinkled with small-pointed colored crystals, and varied with red feldspar. The millions of kisses and touches impressed by the faithful have worn the surface uneven, and to a considerable depth. This miraculous block all orthodox Mussulmans believe to have been originally a transparent hyacinth brought from heaven to Abraham by the angel Gabriel; but that its substance, as well as its color, have long been changed by coming in contact with the impurities of the human race.

_The Portland Vase._