The silver swan
The Silver Swan is an 18th-century 18th-century and 18th-century clock and can be seen in the Bowes Museum in the English Barnard Castle. Operation
The swan is a life-sized movement and a music box. The swan swims in a stream made of glass tubes surrounded by silver leaves. In the stream one can see small fish swimming. When the clock is wound up, the music starts playing and turning the glass tubes. This gives the illusion that the water flows. The swan turns his head from left to right and bends forward to catch a fish. (In case of lack of plants, a swan also eats small fish like roots). The entire performance takes 40 seconds. In the Bowes Museum, one can only admire this once a day to save the mechanism.
It is assumed that the Belgian inventor Jean-Joseph Merlin (1735-1803) is the maker of the silver swan. James Cox was the first owner. The swan changed several times from owner and also stood at the 1867 Paris World Exhibition.
The swan is described in a British Parliament Act or Parliament from 1773 as a 3 foot (0.91m) machine in diameter and 18 feet (5.49m) high. As a result, it appears that the present swan was ever part of a larger whole. One suspects that there was a waterfall behind the swan which was stolen. and
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