Clockwork in the Cold

Swiss-y Stuff, part 2


While the Val-de-Travers has so much to offer by way of absinthe history, it is also in these same Jura mountains where some of the finest clockmaking was done in the history of Europe.

I have a theory (heh-hem) about why the Swiss became such excellent clock-makers, and why it became so much of an industry in a country where the population is sparsely scattered and relatively isolated.

Thanks to AndreJenny

My theory (heh-hem) goes like this: imagine living in a place where you are trapped, indeed kept in idleness, for seven months or more of the year. Imagine your whole family in one very large house with three-foot-thick walls, often with the barn attached on the side or even above the family dwelling, filled with cows and hay, keeping you warm. Imagine how much you tire of each others' company, and how difficult it is to get to the other houses in your village when the wind is howling outside.

Imagine that you have time on your hands. The weather is crazy cold, and you have horrible cabin fever. You have a meticulous mind, keeping things clean and organized; and you are thinking of time, because time is something one counts when one is stuck inside all winter. Plus, where are you going to get income for the winter? Traditionally, farmers and village folk make things in the dark and snowy months, which they sell to bring in a little for those necessities which can't be stored away in the fall.


Now, if you learned how to make clocks - which was a craze in those days, everyone was buying them - think how interesting it would be, losing yourself in that small and meticulous world of rhythm and movement, of calculation and hand-eye coordination, a small world unto itself. Think how large and comfortable your house would appear when you'd been spending hours working in your little world. And, if your family and your regular work got too tiresome, you had that secret place of concentration - of communion, even - to return to.

I'd be willing to bet that the clock industry slowed down considerably during the summer months, when people were busy trying to get their houses in order, the weather is warm and everyone's outside working. But (heh-hem) this is simply my theory.

La Chaux-de-Fonds is famous for its MuséeInternational d'Horlogerie. The architect Le Corbusier was born here (and unfortunately much of the newer architecture seems to reflect this fact). The museum has a pretty good timeline for their collection on their website, color-coded for different types of clocks, with different technologies listed across the top. Very interesting (with some excellent examples, such as the rather graphic little watch from 1820 with the tiny animated picture of Jupiter seducing Callisto, accompanied by "an air of mechanical music").

The Cartier factory outside La Chaux-de-Fonds. I found it really strange, the industry in this part of Switzerland. All the famous, super-luxury watch people seem to be based here, but the factories are small and ineffably Swiss, with clean modern exteriors and usually sandwiched into a small village or out in a field somewhere, like this one is.

In Le Locle, a small town whose charm had clearly been substantially supplimented by the prosperity of its three-hundred-year-old watch industry, we went to see their lesser-known Musée d'Horlogerie before theoretically heading on to the big one in La Chaux-de-Fonds - which we never got to, because the things in this small museum, housed in an old chateau, were amazing, and the people were gracious and forthcoming.


First of all, before you even get into the museum there is a small room in the garden with a replica of ibn al-Razāz al-Jazarī's Elephant Clock, done complete to every detail, and using al-Jazari's technology. There is a nice document explaining the technology, which is essentially a hollow hemisphere with a hole in the bottom, which gradually fills with water, tripping a falling ball which in turn lifts the hemisphere out of the water. It's very ingenious, and thrilling to see something of al-Jazira's in the flesh, so to speak.


Besides all the many, many beautiful clocks - engraved clocks, carved clocks, enameled or guilded or caged clocks - there was a whole room devoted to automata. Not large automata; small ones, from doll-sized dancers who whirl across the floor to a perfect foot-high old women who walks carefully on her own two feet with help from her cane, to tiny birds no more than an inch long who pop out of a hand-mirror and sing with real whistles. There were watches there, too, with extremely tiny automata of dancers and musicians and so on, and my favorite was a pair of segmented enamel and gold caterpillars, only slightly larger than life-sized, which hump their way very realistically along on whichever surface they are put.

Made by Francois Jurod in 2000 for La Semeuse coffee company.

The museum is known to be a gem, in that they house three very particular collections which contain some of the finest specimens of their kinds in the world. But some of their displays are temporary: on the bottom floor, for example, they had an exhibition of coffee technology - ancient machines for roasting and grinding, and a really great automaton of a Turk on a flying carpet pouring himself a cup of real (read: wet) coffee, which he then "drinks" so that his cup is empty again. The best part was the waving carpet, with its attendant, wonderful, mechanism.

On the top floor they had an almost overwhelming exhibit on the theory and nature of time and its measurement. Geological time, astronomical time, personal time (birth to death), the rise and fall of civilizations, chronological time such as calendars (perpetual calendars, lunar calendars, calendars from different cultures, etc.), almanacs, datebooks, and many more. There was an area devoted to "le temps approximatif": sundials, astrological instruments, and hourglasses. And then, of couse, the area with watches, gear-cutters, and precision watch-making tools, a compliment of the excellent display on the history of movements on the ground floor.


They have a really quite amazing film of the tiny automats all doing their stuff, one by one, in extreme closeup - worth seeing because then when you see the real thing you understand the amazing actions of their mechanisms. The film is interesting in its own right, and they sell it for 30 francs (about $20), but alas, they were out. They do accept money through the mail and will send you a copy if you do so - I will be getting a copy and I will try to post a sample so that you can see how great it is - I think they could do with the business.

Both towns, and indeed many small clock-making villages in between, are in the canton of Neuchâtel. The Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, in the lovely city of Neuchâtel, houses the amazing Jaquet-Droz Automata. You can go see the automata anytime (there is an accompanying film in several languages), but they only demonstrate them the first Sunday every month - it is the same man you see in the videos (the Writer, the Artist, and the Organ Player) doing the demonstration, and he will answer questions happily if you are willing to ask in French.

They are truly as wonderful as I had heard, and I was lucky enough to stumble on a special demonstration outside the usual time. The writer wrote, the artist drew, the man showed us their insides, and the organ-player played her tunes, her wooden fingers actually pressing the keys on her specially-made organ. Most wonderfully, my elder daughter and I sneaked back for a last look at the three pseudopeople and were astonished to find the organ-player sitting in the dimness breathing and tipping her head, long after the demonstration was over, the lights turned off, and everyone had gone home. Apparently her breathing and head movements are natural effects of the mainspring being allowed to wind down so that it doesn't stay tight all the time and lose its...well, springiness.

So we sat there in the dark and watched her eyes gleam slightly as she shifted in her seat, her chest rising and falling, silent and companionable. We kept her company for as long as we could, and then we went home to France.




Links

The organ player

The Writer

The inner workings of the Writer - a true early computer.

The Artist, who actually blows away the pencil crumbs...

San Marco Clock Tower, Venice

Ed. note: I have been meaning to post about this. Pardon my clockwork geeking below; if you are uninterested in technical details it is still worth checking out the photos!

While in Venice, I found out accidentally about the little-known tour of the beautiful clock tower on the Piazza San Marco. Everyone is so busy going into the Basilica or up the Campanile they don't look much at the clock tower; but it's a beautiful thing, marking not only the hours but the date, moon phase and astrological time.

The clock is remarkable: aside from the mechanism, there is a ball painted half gold and half blue, which by its orientation in the clock face will describe the face of the moon. A track circling the outside allows a group of four figures (the three Magi and a trumpeting angel) to pass in front of the figure of the Virgin (this only happens on two festivals a year now, see below). As they do so, the Angel raises its trumpet and its wings, and the Magi bow and move one arm in salute.


At the top of the tower, two larger-than-life shepherds (known as the Moors because of their patina) swing their hammers hourly at the great bell. They are beautifully put together (and vastly anatomically correct), their fleeces hiding the fact that they are segmented at the waist.



The clock was created by clockmaker Gian Carlo Rainieri in 1499. Rainieri then moved into the tower and was paid to keep the clock running and accurate. When he died a number of people of varying skill levels succeeded him, and after two hundred and fifty years the clock was in bad shape. So in 1752 Bartolomeo Ferracina, a reknown clockmaker, was hired to refurbish the clock.

"He actually made a completely new movement. The old mechanism and the original astronomical dial were given to him in part payment. The new movement, although modified, remains until the present day. It has four trains, in a peculiar cruciform pattern, one for the time, two for the hour strike by the Moors and one for the special 132-blow strike mechanism which will be described later. On the upper floor of the tower, above the main movement, there is a separate mechanism for the Magi's carousel." (from Antica Orologeria Famberlan, and excellent page with everything you might want to know about the mechanism's history).

Curiously, the pendulum was lengthened twice, and became long enough that it necessarily hung down into the next floor. This meant that the temperatori, living in the tower below the clock mechanism, had the pendulum moving across his living room at all times. Here is a picture from the 1950s:



The climb through the tower is "not recommended for pregnant women or people suffering from claustrophobia" as the stairs are narrow and get narrower as you go up. Personally, I was impressed with their very Enlightenment look:



In 1857 more repairs were required, and Giovanni Doria, the temperatore of the time, made a careful survey of the necessary repairs to both building and mechanism. While they were at it, the Venetians decided they wanted a luminous display on it so that the time could be read at night. So Luigi De Lucia (appropriately named) designed the two wheels that displayed lamp-lit numerals in the windows that the Magi had once come through. The light shone out through glass-covered cutouts in the metal wheels.

When I was there, I noticed a strange whirring clunk that happened every five minutes; this was the minute wheel regulator going off, and the wheel doing its turn to the next display panel. It was quite extraordinary to be privy to this mechanism, as it's very beautiful from the inside:


Note the triangular frames hanging from the ceiling. These have small, strong metal hooks on them which are hooked onto the number-wheels, allowing them to be easily disengaged and drawn backwards into the room for those days during Ascension when the Magi are once again attached to their wheel (on the floor) and allowed to parade past Mary.

There are two faces to the clock, both driven by the same movement: one of them, elaborate and decorative, faces the Doge's Palace and the Piazza San Marco, for the Doge to look at (and presumably all the Senators and so on who ran the government from the Palace). The other one was for the regular people, who lived outside the square; this one was very simple, though still elegant.



Nowadays, the clock is driven by "weights" which are actually wheels on bicycle-type chains, pulled or lifted daily by electric motors. This was based on a decision not to rely on a temperatore to pull the weights down each day and wind the movement. It is the only part of the 1750's mechanism which has been completely modernized.



I was intrigued and impressed as I followed our guide, not only because it's the kind of thing most of us dream of - living in a tower with a bunch of clockwork - but because so much of the place was designed with beauty and functionality hand-in-hand. I do love the Enlightenment and Victorian eras' penchant for lovely design! Here, for example, is the top floor, before you climb to the rooftop where the bell-ringers stand:


Or this rooftop structure which tops the spiral stairs and keeps them watertight:


I mean, really! Captain Nemo, where are you??

One of the best parts of this tour was being taken out onto the roof to see the high-Rennaissance Moors, who look about double life-size. It was so great to get up close and see the difference in their faces and poses, and understand, finally, not only how the pivot at their waists were so beautifully disguised, but to have the mechanism explained: inside their legs is a rod which turns each of them; if you look at the main clock mechanism (above) you will see a large wheel with notches in it. If you look closely, you may see that there is one notch, followed by two notches, followed by three, and so on: the wheel is actually a great cam, which moves the bell-ringers to ring the appropriate number of times.



There are two of these cams, one on each side of the clock mechanism, to drive the two Moors.

Also, if you notice there is a double cable going up to a small hammer on the edge of the bell. This was put there as part of the 1752 mechanism; at midnight every night, every blow to the bell by the Moors is relived via this little hammer: 132 blows. Whether this is a sort of "rewind" feature, or a "design feature" (or some combination of the two), I have not yet discovered.

I feel so lucky to have found this tour, which I found through an idle inquiry at the Tourist Information office at Piazza San Marco. Since then, I have tried to find the name of the place we bought our tickets, but every online source seems to try to sell them to you at great expense. It was (somewhat) cheaper in person - just enquire, as I did, and they will direct you to the nearby gallery where you can book a spot on a tour (and where there is a wonderful miniature of the tower and its mechanism). You must book it ahead of time, and show up early, as you are taken in a group over to the tower and let in the little door at the bottom (a curiously thrilling moment). When we went, it was a tour of two - my daughter and I had the place to ourselves.

I am hoping to get permission to go up in the clock in the cathedral at Strasbourg on our way through in ten days. Wish me luck!


Links:

Wikipedia, of course, has a bunch of information about the various restorations and attendant controversies.

I read the book Daughter of Venice with my daughter before going to Venice (heh), and it really put us in the mood - and filled in some details about Venetian history. It's about a girl living in 16th century Venice and is full of interesting details about what life was like for women and how families worked to keep their wealth. It describes some aspects of the governmental system of Venice and the kind of wrangling that was always going on. Great book! ...In the Young Adult section, like many good books, but readable by all ages, I think. Unfortunately, though, it doesn't discuss the clock tower in any detail.

Decrepit But Not Abandoned

Walking on Marjan, the high hill-park here in Split, I have walked past this fascinating spot a number of times.



It's rare, in the States, to see glass greenhouses anymore - and rarer still to see one in such a wonderful state of organic funk. I wondered what this was for ages before I went to investigate.


I found that it was the Botanički Vrt, or the Botanical Gardens, a largely futile exercise in signage, as it is crumbling and seems to have very little in the way of exotic plants. There are several greenhouses, of which this is the largest (the others seeming to be a poor storage area for a motorcycle and a bunch of cast-off window-frames). The gardens are tiny and pretty, but this greenhouse held my imagination. Walking around it was an exercise in mysterious snooping.





After I'd been there for awhile a guy came out of one of the buildings to smoke a cigarette. He looked at me curiously, then asked me a question in Croatian. After awhile I realized he had unlocked it for me, so I went inside, to a scene of curiously domestic disintegration and decay.




Proof positive that it's always worth investigating...

To Err Is Human, to Forgive...Human

In September, two researchers from Penn State University published about their new way to capture genetic material from extinct animals. I heard about it at the beginning of that month, when the information was released prior to the publication of a paper in Science, and have been talking about it with a friend of mine for two months now.

The thing that's unusual about this new method is that previously, with DNA samples (both nuclear and mitochondrial) from muscle and bone, there was so much cell degradation and genetic interference from bacteria and so on that it was difficult and time-consuming to find a clean enough sample to be able to get a good chunk of sequencing out of it. Sifting through the remains of mammoths and other extinct animals was so complicated and expensive that it would sometimes take six years for a single study of a single bit of mammoth. Think of it: you get this little chunk of animal, and then you have to figure out which of it is that animal and which of it is bacteria, viruses, the drool from the thing that killed and ate it, the bugs and things that broke it down after death, or whatever.

Not only that, but previously the process of saving mitochondrial DNA had been extremely difficult and fragmented, mitochondria being the driver of a number of cellular activities such as cell signaling (which includes communication between an embryo and the uterus), cellular differentiation, and control of a cell's cycles and growth.


Now, however, Stephan C. Schuster and Webb Miller have - nearly by accident - discovered a much faster, cleaner way: they take the DNA from hair.

For a long time it was thought that hair was a poor way to collect DNA because they had to gather from the few cells still clinging to the roots of the hair. The rest of the hair appeared to be dead material. But Mr. Schuster and Mr. Miller found that actually, the core of a hair is, essentially DNA; and that the material surrounding it on the outside of the hair (the keratin) is actually like a natural plastic, in effect laminating that DNA so that it remains quite pure. All they had to do was to wash the hairs very thoroughly, to remove any environmental contaminants, and then essentially crack open the "plastic" protection, and they had an instant cache of genome-building materials - plus a "remarkably enriched [source of] mitochondrial DNA, the special type of DNA frequently used to measure the genetic diversity of a population."

Not only is the DNA cleaner, but this means much, much shorter turnaround times: "In contrast [to previous methods], Miller said, 'Once I get the data from the genome sequencer, it takes only five minutes to assemble the entire mitochondrial genome.' The discovery... demonstrates that hair clippings can give researchers enormous power and efficiency for divining the genetic makeup of ancient species, " says the press release article from Penn State. The pair's work with hairs as old as 50,000 years has already set off a complete genome sequencing for mammoths. There is some discussion in the scientific community of the possibility of cloning a mammoth, which could be gestated by a modern elephant.


This brings up a lot of ideas for my friend and I. If it becomes this easy to sequence a genome for an extinct animal, and insert it into a modern animal's womb, then what's to stop scientists and entrepeneurs from re-creating extinct animals - the dodo, the passenger pigeon - and creating a wild-animal park a la Jurassic park, full of previously extinct animals? What's to stop us from simply fixing our previous mistakes, and putting dodos back on the island where we so gleefully slaughtered them, or re-introducing the many Amazon species which have been lost?

All those museum specimens which have some tiny portion of hair or feathers left - think of how much richness and variety of DNA is now available for us to sequence! We can be gods on our own earth.

Which brings me to the next point, which my obnoxious mind immediately jumped to, beyond the fun and joy my friend was imagining. What is to keep us from saying to ourselves, much as we do about dropping a dish, or about not buying a car with low gas mileage: oh, dear, we've made that species extinct again. Oops! Well, we'll just sequence it and start over. No one will mind...except, well, darn, the funding ran out. We'll do it later. In the meantime, look over there -

It smacks of the Godfather: "Bless me Father, for I have sinned", followed by the inevitable "Say (or compile) three gene sequences and don't forget to say your prayers," and the feeling that we have done our penances so we are all right to go out and kill again.


The thing that is so impressive to my friend is the idea that within his lifetime, he may get to see a wooly mammoth walking around. That right there makes him nearly want to weep, because it's like magic. It's like imaginary things coming to life, like all the things he thought would be the future when he was a kid, and was disappointed by (where's our jet-packs, dammit?). It's all the stuff we've lost, coming back to us - a universe of new exploration, new knowledge. It's a true Wonder, come to us in this time, when we are alive. And he's right; it is. It is really like a miracle. I have to say, the thing, for me, that would make me weep, would be a whole flock of dodos, peacefully minding their own business somewhere. That would be something to see.

But with every marvel comes a warning: the fairies are magic, but they can be dangerous too. Don't trust them too much, or you may fall asleep and wake to find everything you love has gone.

Image: Andy Goldsworthy

The British Museum's new King's Library

Thanks to akacurator for telling me about Wonder Cabinet, a community of Wunderkammer-lovers. On a tip from romeodistress, at said community, I looked into the British Museum's Enlightment exhibition (which seems to be ongoing since 2003). The new-ish room that houses it, the King's Library, is apparently set up pretty much as a Wunderkammer itself.

Here is what the Museum itself has to say:

"The physician Sir Hans Sloane and his contemporaries collected natural specimens, beautiful sculptures and ‘exotic’ objects from around the world. He created an encyclopedia of the world in one place, and after his death in 1753 his collection became the British Museum – a ‘universal museum’ for the people of Britain and visitors from around the globe.

Founded by an Act of Parliament in 1753, the British Museum was the first free public museum in the world, intended ‘not only for the inspection and entertainment of the learned and the curious, but for the general use and benefit of the public’. It was thus one of the most potent acts of the Enlightenment and at the same time one of its greatest achievements.

Its founding collections were rapidly supplemented. Captain James Cook, Sir Joseph Banks and many others made extraordinary voyages, returning not only with objects, but also with drawings and accounts of people’s customs and ways of life from distant lands. Sir William Hamilton formed an amazing collection of classical antiquities from southern Italy. King George III himself had an superb collection of scientific instruments. They wanted to understand, and use that knowledge to improve their world. Through their activities new disciplines were born: taxonomy, geology, palaeontology, archaeology, the history of art and ethnography, to use the labels that would soon be applied to new areas of study. In this way the eighteenth century laid the basis for the way future generations and we today would understand their own worlds."

It's not often that one gets to see a properly assembled Wunderkammer in the flesh. I'm looking forward to visiting it next year when I'm in London!