A Wonderful Clock

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 29, 1882

A Wonderful Clock.

THE most astonishing thing I ever heard of in the way of a time-piece is a clock described by a Hindoo rajah as belonging to a native princess of Upper India, and jealously guarded as the rarest treasure of her luxurious palace.

In front of the clock's disk was a gong, swung upon poles, and near it was a pile of artificial human limbs. The pile was made up of the full number of parts for twelve perfect bodies, but all lay heaped together in seeming confusion.

Whenever the hands of the clock indicated the hour of one, out from the pile crawled just the number of parts needed to form the frame of one man, part joining itself to part with a quick metallic click; and when completed the figure sprang up, siezed a mallet, and walking up to the gong, struck one blow that sent the sound pealing through every room and corridor of that stately castle. This done, he returned to the pile and fell to pieces again. When two o'clock, two men arose and did likewise; and so through all the day, the number of figures being the same as the number of the hour, till at noon and midnight the entire heap sprang up, and marching to the gong, struck one after another, each his blow, making twelve in all, and then fell to pieces again.