^ ^ L- fkA T"-' %- h BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Bettrg W, Sage 1891 fi^\<\y^t>h aLD|fe.|jtPs: 3081 arWaSIs'^"'"^" ""'™™">' Library '''.'j'J *||"epiece of shadows olin.anx 3 1924 031 362 142 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis bool< is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031362142 3^//^ CDos-ys THR TIMEPIECE OF SHADOWS A HISTORY OK THE SUN DIAL By Henry Spkncer Spackman 'c;^^ Nkw YriKK WIIJ.IAM T. COMSTOCK '.■■, Warn.-n Street COPYRIGHT, HENRY SPENCER SPACKMAN, 1895. PREFACE. WHEN essaying, some years ago, to construct my first sun dial, from the brief directions in Trautwme, I little thought to pur- sue the subject further, much less ever to write a book on sun dials. But the interest then aroused has grown with each succeeding year, until sun dials have become with me a hobby. Emboldened by the absence of any books on the subject readily accessible to American readers, my purpose is to call attention more especially to that poetical and artistic side of the subject which has claimed the thought of some of the greatest thinkers and writers of the past, rather than to the astronom- ically scientific though somewhat confused accuracy to which the art oT dialing was carried at the beginning of the last century; and none need open the following pages in the hope of finding in them a thoroughly scientific exposition of the theory and practice of dialing in all its minu- tia. I have sought rather to divest the directions for constructing dials of all scientific phrasoology or discussion of the various theories of pro- jection, as such terms and arguments are confusing to the reader and make the subject unnecessarily abstruse. Probably the last notably scientific treatise on the subject was written by James Furgusoii in 1760 and re-edited by Sir David Brewster in 1805, an American edition being printed in 1806. It was with the aid of a copy of this work that Robert Stevenson constructed the dial on the cot- tage of his father, which is still to be seen at Killingworth. Many other famous men have left behind them practical proof, in the form of dials, of the interest they took in the subject ; sun dials still being in existence whose design is accredited to Nicholas Stone and Sir Isaac Newton, the following instances shoiving that even death was power- less to break the hold the sun dial has obtained on the minds of some. John Howard, the great philanthropist, on his death-bed made the fol- lowing request; "There is a spot near the village of Dauphigney where I should like to be buried. Suffer no pomp to be used at my funeral, no monument to mark the spot where I am laid, but put me quietly in the earth, place a sun dial over my grave and let me be for- gotten." This request was partly fulfilled. He was buried in the spot he had selected near the village of Dauphigney, about five versts north of Cherson. Some years later, by order of the Emperor Alexander, there was erected near the gate in the cemetery of Cherson a cenotaph, de- scribed by Dr. Henderson as follows: " It is of white freestone, about 30 feet in height, surrounded liy a wall of the same stnne some 7 feet high by 200 feet in circumference." On the pedestal is a Russian in- scription of the following import: " Howard. Died 20 Jan., 179O, aged 65." Toward the summit of the pillar is a sun dial, but the only- divisions of time exhibited are from 10 to 2. While Sir William Tem- ple ordered that his heart should be placed in a silver case and de- posited under the sun dial in his garden Though clocks have long ago driven the sun dial from the busy work- a-day world, and now occupy their former place on the walls of our pub- lic buildings and proclaim the hour with brazen tongue from our church towers, may we not still find room for the sun dial among the flowers of our gardens or on the walls of our country homes? If we no longer con- sult them as oracles and rarely seek from their carven face to learn the hour, there will ever be about the sun dial, with its old-world associa- tions and romantic memories, a beauty of sunshine and shadow that will far more than repay the trouble of erection. To discard the sun dial entirely or allow the many beautiful thoughts and fancies to which it has given rise to be forgotten, would seem like turning our backs on an old friend or wantonly neglecting a part of the beauty and learning of the past, and it is with the hope of preventing this if possible that the following pages have been written. Frankly disclaiming all pretense to originality, I have without hesitation adopted and copied from the works of older writers. But, not wishing to fatigue the general reader with notes and references, I have purposely abstained from giving authorities, though careful in every instance to verify as far as practicable each statement. But for the information of those who may wish to pursue the study further, I mention the following books from which the bulk of this work was taken: Dialing, by William Leyburn, 1700. Horologiographia, Thomas Fale, 1593. Fergusson's Treatise on Dialing, 1760. Lerdbetter's Clocks and Bells. Mrs. Gatty's Book of Dials. Lewis's Astronomy of the Ancients. Encyclopedia Brittanica, 8th edition. The works of Herodotus, Pliny, Vitruvius, and the many archreologi- cal journals of Great Britain. The Author. AVith still more joy to thee I turn, Meet horologe, for bard to love; Time's sweetest flight from thee I learn, Whose lore is borrowed from above. I love in some sequestered nook Of antique garden, to behold The page of thy sun-lighted book Its touching homily unfold. On some old terrace wall to greet, Thy form and sight which never cloys— 'Tis more to thought than drink and meat; To feeling, than art's costliest toys. These seem to track the path of time By vulgar means that man has given; Thou, simple, silent and sublime, But show'st thy shadowy sign from Heaven. — Bernard Barton. The Timepiece of Shadows. SECTION I. To MANY in this age of railway? and standard time, when minutes count for more, in the ordering of our daily lives, than hours once did ; when even our smaller towns have their clocks connected by wire with Washington, to set them exactly to the second at least once a day, a treatise on dialing would seem an archaism fit only to moulder away on the shelves of a library — scarce worth the paper on which it was printed. Yet to those who know them there is a fas- cination about the time-worn dials of Europe, moss-covered and weather-beaten, with their quaintlv carved mottoes that strive to impress on the passer-by the fleeting nature of time, and there is a certain poetry in the thought of the sun itself recording on the carved stone the passing hour, that no clock with its combi- nation of cog-wheels, springs and weights can ever have. lO The Timepiece of Shadows. For over two thousand years the dial has been the time-keeper of the human race, " sim- ple, silent and sublime," silently, though surely, pointing to the passing hour until it itself has become almost a thing of the past, and to many of us a name only ; yet, though its use- fulness may have in a measure departed, the beauty still remains. Possessed (when they have a motto) of both body and soul, these primitive registers of the fleeting hour have a natural charm for the thoughtful that is enhanced by the beauty of their surround- ings ; for whether half-buried by the rank grass in a sunny corner of en old garden whose un- dipped trees threaten to part it from the sun, or perched high up on the wall or gable of some old house, they are invariably pictur- esque, and an ugly dial is a rarity. To the architect the dial's curiously carved or painted face offers possibilities that need but the pointing out to be eagerly seized upon. How many an awkward space of blank wall has been covered with a blind window or senseless ornament that a dial would more fitly have filled ! while in the window dials of stained glass there is a field for the taste in color and design almost unlimited. A History of tlie Sitn Dial. i r The sun dial has been supposed by many writers to have been almost coeval with man, Lamb writing, "Adam could scarce have missed it in Paradise." But after carefully sifting all the historical data now obtainable, it does not, seem probable that it was known in any of its more perfect forms much before the seventh century B. C. To the savage or primitive man the two great divisions of day and night suf- ficed, and they were plainly marked ; he ate when he had food, rose to seek it with the sun, and when the night found him he slept. As his intelligence advanced and he acquired a fixed habitation to which he returned at night, he learned to observe more carefullv the heio^ht of the sun in the heavens and governed his movements by its position, though it must have been ages before any systematic attempt was made to subdivide the day into fixed pe- riods, for in Rome, at the beginning of the fifth century B. C, the two natural divisions of the day, night and morning only, are mentioned in the twelve tables of the laws, and it was not until 450 B. C. that noon or mid-day was added, which was for the next hundred years proclaimed by a herald from the Curia when the sun was seen between the Rostra and the 1 2 The , Timepiece of Shadows. Graecostasis or station of the Greeks. Al- though the ancients must from the earUest times have judged from the height of the sun in the heavens the flight of time, it was only in comparatively modern times that they learned to divide the day (by the shadow it cast), even though rudely, into the different hours. The first historical mention of the dial is found in II. Kings, twentieth chapter, where Isaiah causes the sun to go back ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz, and though just what this, dial may have been is now only a matter of conjecture, it would seem no great stretch of possibilities to suppose it identical with, or at least forming part of, the altar made by Urijah after the pattern of that seen at Damascus by: Ahaz (II. Kings, i6). Further on, in Jewish history we find the day divided into four parts. ' In Nehemiah we read: " They stood up in their place and read, in the book of the Lord their God, one fourth part of a day, and another fourth part they confessed and worshipped the Lord their God." This general division of the day from sunrise, and sunset, into four parts, would seem to have lasted until our Saviour's time, though further A History of the Sun Dial. 13 subdivided into hours, for in the parable of the householder, Matthew, XX., 1-8, the house- holder is described as g^oinof out to hire labor- ers for his vineyard at the 3d, 6th and 9th hours, and afterward at the iith hour. The nig-ht was not subdivided into hours, but into three watches : the beginning of the watch (Lam., XL, 19), the middle watch (Judges, VII., 19), the morning watch (Sam., XL, 11). The hour as a distinct period of time is first mentioned in Matthew. The rendering of the word " degrees " as "steps" in the margin of the revised version has given rise to various suppositions. Some writers have thought that a pillar outside the King's palace threw a shadow on the terrace walk, and thus indicated the time of day. The Rev. G. W. Bosanquet considers that " the invention of the pole and gnomon com- bined, producing in itself an instrument per- fect for all observations, was probably con- nected with the rectification of the Babylonian calendar in B. C. 747, nineteen years before the accession of King Ahaz, and the dial was therefore a scientific instrument, the shadows being cast on steps in the open air, or more probably within a closed chamber, into which a J 4 Tlw TtJiiepiece of Shadows. ray of light was admitted from above, which passed from winter to summer up and down an apparatus in the form of steps. Such cham- bers were used in the East in observatories till the middle of the present century." Others have held, and perhaps more cor- rectly, that it was a concave hemisphere, in the middle of which was a gnomon, the shadows of which fell on diverse lines engraved in the cavity. This description is not unlike the dial now extant, attributed to the Chaldean Bero- sus. The credit of the invention and first use of the gnomon and dial, combined as one instru- ment, in Greece, has been variously attributed. Pliny writes that Anaximenes of Miletus, the friend or pupil of Anaximander, first found out the reason and proportion of shadows among the Lacedemonians, and there taught the art of dialing. He lived about tvvo hun- dred years after the reign of Ahaz. Others affirm that it was Anaximander himself who found this out, and made also the first map of the earth. Herodotus says that the Greeks learned this art and the divisions of the day in twelve parts from the Chaldeans. Diodorus writes that it was Hypacian who first observed ^-/ Histo)-y of the Sun Dial. i 5 the hours, while Macrobius says that the sci- ence came from the Egyptians, who called the sun Horus, which by its motion limits each hour to its appointed space. The truth doubt- less is that the dial, as a complete scientific in- strument, was first known to the Chaldeans about 750 B. C, and traveled thence through Egypt to Greece, and that Anaximenes or An- aximander first made practical use of this knowledge in Greece. It has been a matter of no little remark by writers on this subject that no dials of Egyp- tian workmanship have been found, though the Egyptians were undoubtedly far advanced in the art of astronom^• — the few dials that have been found in connection with Egvptian monuments, notably that found at the base of Cleopatra's Needle, and now in the British Museum, being of later addition and Greek workmanship. Professor Renouf, writing m 1887. says we are at a loss as to the niethod used by the Egyptians in measurmg time. They certainly had some method, for we have copies of a very ancient calendar rfivincr the hours of the nifdit at which certain stars culmmated. Of course, this could not have been a dial, and it must 1 6 The Timepiece of Shadows. have been an instrument by which equal inter- vals of time were measured. It may have been an hour-glass or water-clock, but no such instrument has been found. There is an Egyp- tian word signifying clock, but the picture of the hieroglyphic looks more like a meridian instrument. There is no reason for supposing that the obeHsks were intended for gnomons, though they might possibly have been utilized for the purpose, and we have knowledge that the one brought from Egypt to Rome by the Emperor Augustus, and now to be seen in the Piazza Monte Citorio, was actually so used, being set up in the Campus Martins, under the direction of the mathematician Facundus No- vus, to show the hour of the day, and also the day of the month, the pavement around it be- ing marked with lines of bronze, said to be sunk as deeply in the ground as the height of the obelisk itself ; though from causes that Pliny conjectures, those markings were subse- quently found to be erroneous. The obelisk seems to have kept its place for some centu- ries, but was ultimately thrown down and dis- appeared from view. It was disinterred in 1643 by Pope Urban VIII., but was again neg- lected, not being erected in its present posi- tion until I 792. A History of the Sun Dial. i 7 The absence of dials from Eg-yptiaa monu- ments is probably accounted for by the near- ness to the equator. In the ordinary horizon- tal dial the anyle of the gnomon is ecjual to the latitude of the place, and for a few degrees either side of the equator would be of such a small elevation as to be practically useless. The same would hold good of the vertical dial, with the additional objection of only marking; the time for a sm.all portion of the year, the dial 1 late being almost parallel with the rays of the sun, and though the Egyptian priests were probably well versed in the theory of con- struction, they were unable, for these reasons, to make any practical use of their knowledge. During the Attic period the Greeks ascer- tained the time of day bv measurino; the lenofth of a shadow, but there is no definite knowledge how this was done. Though the writings of that period contain many allusions to a six-foot shadow or mark, a ten-foot shadow or mark, etc., it is wholly a matter of conjecture how this shadow was measured. Probably they referred to some definite height of pole or gno- mon as a standard by which the shadow was cast, but it is nowhere specified. Salmasius suo-gests that it was each man's own shadow i8 The Timepiece of Shadows. which he measured with his foot, which is really an ingenious hypothesis and is supported by a modern practice, for in the farming re- gions of Pennsylvania it is the custom for the ploughman to unhitch his team and the laborer to leave the field for the noonday meal when, facing the north, he can put his foot on the shadow cast by his head. Paladius, who wrote a book on agriculture A. D. 400, gives some interesting tables and instructions for telling the hour of day by the length of shadow cast by a pole stuck upright in the orround, but omits giving the length of the pole. He has tables for every month, but we give only those for June and December, as showing the longest and shortest shadows cast: 1st 2d 3a 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th gth loth nth hour after sunrise June, 22 feet; December, " 12 " ' S 5 3 29 feet. 19 15 12 10 9 10 12 15 19 29 Whatever the earlier Greek method was it must have been very unsatisfactory. One of their early writers tells a ludicrous story of a A History oj the Sun Dial. 19 man who was invited to dine when the shadow was twenty feet long, or about 5 o'clock in the evening, and of his comuig in the early morn- ing instead ; and it was not until Berosus in- troduced the hemicycle sun dial, hollowed out of a square block and inclined according to the latitude, that time was denoted with any great accuracy. This dial divided the day, that is, from sunrise to sunset, into twelve equal parts without regard to its length, the hours varying with the changing seasons from about eighty minutes (as we reckon time), in June, to forty-five in December ; but it is not certain that this discrepancy in the length of the hours was noticed, so used were the people to it, except by astronomers and mathematic- ians. Even after the invention of clocks in the thirteenth century they were at first provided with means for regulating them to correspond with the unequal hours. It was the inability to do this successfully that so much retarded their adoption, which was not general until about the seventeenth century. The numerals of the Greek dials were represented by the let- ters of the alphabet, and it is curious that those letters which express the hours six, seven, eight, nine, etc. (from n(.)on to 4 o'clock), should 20 The Timepiece of Shadows. spell the word ••ZH&i," live. An epigram attrib- uted to Lucian notices this : Six hours are quite enough for toil, and those that are shown by the letters after them, say to mortals, " Live." The Greek dials were numbered from one to twelve, the first hour, the third hour, etc., and many interesting specimens are pre- served to us in the museums of Europe. The Romans were better fighters than mathematic- ians, and it was not until long after dials had become common in Greece that the first one was set up in Rome by Papirius Cursor, in the Court of the Ouirinus, 293 B. C. About thirty years afterward Valerius Messala, during the first Punic war, having taken the town of Ca- tania in Sicily, brought from that place a sun dial, which was placed over a pillar near the Rostra, but being calculated for the latitude of Catania, it told in Rome the time inaccurately enough, yet remained without rival for ninety- nine years, when, in 164 B. C, Marcius Philip- pus erected a dial carefully calculated for the latitude of Rome. From that time dials were of frequent use in Rome, and from lines attributed to Plautius it would seem that their information was loudly proclaimed, at stated intervals, by trumpeter : ^ History of the Sun Dial. 2 1 "The gods confound the man wlio first found out How to distinguish hours, and confound him, too, Wi.o, in this phrce, set up a sun dial To cut and hack my day so wretcliedly Into small pieces. When I was a boy. My belly was my sun dial, one more sure. Truer and more exact than any of them. This dial told me when 'tw^as proper time To go to dinner, when I had ought to eat. But, nowadays, wdiy, when I even have, I can't fall to, unless the sun gi\'es leave. The town is so full of these confounded dials The greater part of its inhabitants, ShruuhC up with hunger, creep along the streets." — Quoted by Aldus Gcllius, B. 3, C. III. Cicero, in the year B. C. 48, writes to Tiro about a sun dial he wished put up at his villa at Tusculum. This is believed to be identical with the one found near the supposed site of his house, and now to be seen in the Museum of the Collegio Romano at Rome. Cicero's death, it is said, was foretold by a raven strik- ing- off the gnomon of this dial. Though dials now became common in Rome, Greece still maintained her supremacy in this, as in other arts, for accuracy and beauty of design, and the finest specimens preserved to us are evi- dently the work of Greek artists. The Arabs adopted and simplified the con- structions that came to them from the Greeks, giving much attention to this study, and were the first to introduce the equal hours. Even The Timepiece of Shadows. at the present day sun dials are common in Mohammedan countries, the Turk erecting a sun dial every time he builds a mosque. The dial would seem to have been unknown to the early Americans, although the historian. Prescott, tells of an immense circular block of carved porphyry disinterred in 1 790 in the great square of the City of Mexico, on which the calendar was engraved ; and the Peruvians also erected pillars of stone from which they learned to determine the time of the equinox, but there is no evidence of their ever havinor been used to divide the day, and modern sci- entists consider Prescott's assumption that these were used as dials erroneous. Among the Indians of the present day the dial seems to be unknown. They do not reckon time by the days, but by the nights, saying, "It is so many nights' travel to such a place," longer periods of time being indicated by the moon, as "So many moons hence." Each moon has its name, which varies, however, with the dif- ferent tribes. Thus the Lenapes, when they inhabited the country bordering on the Atlan- tic, called the month corresponding to March the Shad moon, that being the month in which these fish abound in the rivers ; but on their A History of the Siui Dial. 23 removal to the interior clianged it to the Sap or Sugar moon, that being the time they tapped the maple trees and made sugar. April was the Flower moon, May the Planting moon, and so on through the calendar. Sometimes when they wished to particularize they would say, pointing to the sun, "Two moons hence, when the sun is there, I will meet you here." They reckon their ages and other long periods of time from some remarkable event in their lives or which has taken place in their remem- brance, and say so many wmters after, or it has been so many winters since. Hind, in his exploration of Labrador, men- tions a very rude form of dial being in use there. In traveling, if one party preceding an- other wished to indicate the time when they were at a particular place, they sought a clear spot in the path, and a circle or ring being drawn in the sand or earth, a stick about two feet long was fixed upright in the centre, and the place where the shadow fell was marked. The party following knew from the position of the shadow at what time the others had been there. Other tribes gather some flowers or ^rass, which they put on a flat stone, and those following judged from their withered condition what time had elapsed since their plucking. 24 The Timepiece of Shadows. Among the Zuni Indians a rude calendar is made by the sunlight passing through a small hole in the walls of their huts and falling on certain marks, by which the different seasons are indicated. In China and Japan small portable dials are found everywhere, but the larger ones are rare. The smaller ones are made of boxwood, and are commonly sold in Chinese towns. They have silken string gnomons, and are combined sun and moon dials. They are made in the province of Ngauliwni. The method of their manufacture is said to have been handed down from generation to generation in one family from* remote antiquity- Before leaving the general history of dials, to describe more fully some of the most inter- esting relics now left to us, a short description of the clepsydra or water clock, though not directly connected with the subject, would be, perhaps, not out of place. This instrument was of Greek or Egyptian invention, and con- sisted primarily of a vessel filled with water from a small orifice, in which the water slowly dropped, much as in the hour glass of the pres- ent day. It is first mentioned by early writers as being used by the Greeks during law suits A History of the Sun Dial. 25 and debates to limit the time consumed by the orators, so many measures of water being al- lowed to each ; and may it not be that to this the modern slang phrase " to dry up," i. c, stop talking, owes its origin ? This simple instru- ment was much elaborated as the mechanical arts advanced, moving (by addition of wheels and pulleys) a hand as in our own clocks. The same idea, in its simplest form, is now to be seen on the Proa of the Malay. A cocoanut shell with a small hole in it floats in a tub of water, and as it fills and sinks a man whose duty it is to watch it calls the hour. In Thibet a copper basin is substituted for the cocoanut shell. The clepsydra, however, was at best a time check only, requiring constant watching and incapable of giving the time at any mo- ment, but was valuable from its being avail- able for telling the time of night or on cloudy days, and there were generally slaves whose special duty was to attend to it. The oldest dials now known to exist are of Grecian origin, and are mostly of the hemicy- clean form, invented by the Chaldean Berosus. One was found at the base of Cleopatra's Needle in 1852 by J. Scott Tucker, and is now in the British Museum. The dial is concave. 26 The Timepiece of Shadows. being hollowed out of a block of stone sixteen and one-half inches in height by seventeen in width and ten in depth. The corners have been broken away, but the lines can be plainly seen with the Greek letters, which numbered thus: ABPJ ESZiiei. The last four letters signify DIAL FOUND AT CASE OF CLEOFATRA S NEEDLE. " Live," giving rise to the Lucian epigram be- fore alluded to. The hours shown are the twelve unequal hours, into which the Greeks divided their day. These dials were generally made with eleven lines, five on each side of the mid-day or merid- i?ai line. The hour lines were crossed bv three A History oj the Sun Dial. parallel arcs of a circle, one near the gnomon marking the winter solstice, below this another marking the equinox, and one near the outer edge marking the summer solstice. The crno- mon was placed upright on the edge of the hollow, and then bent at ri^ht angrles, the hor- izontal portion extending as far as the equinoc- tial circle. The shadow passed along this line at all hours of the day on the 21st of March and September, and in w-inter receded until it reached the line of the winter solstice, and then advanced until June 21st, w^hen it extended to the outer line, the position and bent form of the gnomon and curve of the hollow, in con- nection with the more vertical or oblique posi- tion of the sun, effecting this change in the length of the shadow. There are several spec- imens of this form of dial in the British Mu- seum, and a very fine one in a collection of sculpture at Inc Blundell, Lancashire. Another fine specimen of Grecian dials was brought from Athens by Lord Elgin. It is carved on white marble and has four faces. In its original position it probably faced the junction of four streets. It bears this inscrip- tion in Greek: "Phaedrus, son of Zoilus, a Paelanian, made this." The name of the archi- 28 The Timepiece of Shadows. tect, Phaedrus, was also found on the steps leading to the Dionysian Theatre. He is thought to have lived in the second century A. D. Perhaps the most elaborate specimen of Gre- cian dials is the Tower of the Winds at Athens. This is a tower of octagon shape, and has a DIAL OF TH.-EDRUS, ATHENS. dial facing each of the eight cardinal points of the compass. Around the top, sculptured in high relief, are figures of the different winds, and the whole was surmounted by a bronze weather cock in the form of a Triton holding a trident in his hands. The tower is forty-five feet in height and built of white marble. In the interior was a clepsydra of large size and elaborate construction, being fed by a stream of water brought underground from a great A History of the Sun Dial. 29 distance. The tower, which has suffered much from the ravages of time, is fully described in TOWER OF THE WINDS, ATHENS. Stuart's Antiquities of Athens, with detailed drawings of the figures, etc. Many other dials of Greek and Roman work- manship are scattered through the museums of The Timepiece of Shadows. Europe, but our space will not admit of their detailed mention. We cannot expect to find in the dials of the early northern nations that beauty of design and mathematical skill that characterize those of the Greeks. A number of fine old Saxon and Danish dials, however, are to be found on the churches and cathedrals of England, nota- bly in Yorkshire, that are well worthy of note, and these roughly carved stones are doubly interesting to us as being the work of our fore- fathers. Between the sun dials of the early Saxons and Scandinavians as exemplified by the re- mains now existing in England, and those of the Romans and Greeks, we find a gap diffi- cult to bridge over, and in the absence of any historical data to the contrary, must conclude each, from the different principles involved in construction, to be the result of an entirely in- dependent though similar motive, striving for the same general result but on different lines, and under widely differing conditions. The early Saxons were a race of mariners, dwelling among the pine forests and fjords of the North in a land of unequal and ever-varying days and nights and changing seasons; a land where A Histoyy of the Sun Dial. mighty mountains antl vast forests hid the horizon and obscured the sun, and where the ebb and flow of the sea made the first natural division of time for the hardy seafarers and Vikings. When they did turn to the sun as the ruler of the hours, it was the face of some toweruiir cliff which caus'ht the sun's slantintr ravs, or against which was thrown the shadow of some slender pine that suggested their first sun dial. In Iceland and Norway the natural horizon of each township is still divided into eight equal parts by mountain peaks, indicat- ing the different hours, or, when such natural landmarks are wanting, by pyramids of stone. These marks, whether natural or artificial, were fixed by the first colonists, the latter being re- newed and kept in repair from generation to generation. Thus, instead of in the hollow bowl of the Chaldean, it was on the vertical wall of his tower that the Northman cut his sun dial, and on the ebb and flow of the tide was founded his divisions of time. First the four tides, two high and two low, and then these subdivided again into halves and cjuar- ters, making the day and night equal to sixteen hours or stundrs. This octaval svstcm was still in vogue in England at the time of the Norman The Timepiece of Shadows. Conquest, as shown by the Kirkdale dial (and is in Iceland), at the present day, though the Roman system introduced into England by St. Augustine became also common, many sun dials showing both divisions. One of the earliest of these is to be seen at old Byland, a village in the Hambletonian hills, where in later times a band of Cistercian monks settled and built a beautiful abbey, which is now in ruins. But the old dial at Byland had marked the time for nearly three hundred years before the first Cistercian ever set foot in Ryedale. Semicircular in form and traced on a vertical plane, this dial divided the day into ten portions; the noonday hour line is crossed, as are those on either side of it, and two others, viz.: those at the beginning of the third and ninth hours. It is thought to be the work of a Dane of the ninth century, and is thus inscribed: i^ S V M A R LE T H A N. HVSCARL-ME. FECIT. (Sumarlethi's House Carl Made Me). It is now to be seen built upside down in the wall of the church, and the inscription is hard to decipher. Over the south door of Weaver thorpe Church in the East Riding of Yorkshire there is a .-/ History of the Sun Dial. small dial of similar shape, only that here the half circle is divided into twelve parts, every alternate line being- crossed. The inscription is incomplete: ] ^-o' ^^'l'"' ^I ~~-^^^^^-£/ 'lw///U!!Mil!-^=- WEAVERTHORPE CHURCH, YORKSHIRE. "/;^ Honor c see Aneireae Apostoli Herebcrtns Wintonie Hoc Monastcrijivi Fecit in Tempore Regn — " The unfinished name is thought to be that of Reginald II., to whom, in 942, King Edmund stood godfather. A longer and more precise inscription on a 34 The Tmiepiece of Shadows. dial over the south door of the ancient church at Kirkdale tells the history of a singularly perfect dial. A great part of the church is ante-Norman, and the dial must have been placed in its present position when the church was restored by Orm, as recorded below. The stone on which the dial is engraved meas- vires seven feet by two in height. In the cen- ♦©ffM-CANWl- JVNA-B0"nTt-/t3 c;gc6oniyv-niw :yIF«j)ON^/e ^^l TPtJffLTo.BT^o ■^IHBPflBC-MfPgoHTtTtllW eWNl)tyfiVtt6W6»>l yJ-INCfftfWPP^&fltfW wiwiwsvrtfofpp DIAL OVER DOOR OF CHURCH AT KIRKDALE. tre is the dial, the five greater hour lines indi- cating the central portions of each " tide," being marked by a cross, and the space be- tween them being halved by a smaller line, thus dividing the day into eight hours; the whole enclosed by a half circle, the index line for the beginning of the first tide being marked by an X. The mscription, being translated, reads as follows: Orm, Gamal's son, bought S. Gregory's Monastery when it was all utterly broken and fallen, and he let it to be made anew from the ground, to Christ and S. Gregory, in Edward's day, the King: and in Tosti's day, the Earl. This is the day's sun-marker, at every tide, And Hawarth me made and Brand Provost. A History of the Sitii Dial. 35 The date of the building of the monastery may be fixed between the year 1063, the year Owen's father was treacherously murdered by Earl Tosti, and 1065, when the latter was de- BISHOPSTONE. posed and banished. It is possible that this Provost or Prior Brand is the same who was elected Abbot of Peterborough in 1066, and Hawarth may have been his superior and Ab- bot of the newly restored monastery at Kirk- dale., Tlie Timepiece of Shadoi>.'s. One of the most perfect specimens of early- dials is at Bishopstone in Sussex. It is placed on the church porch and is inscribed with the name of Eadric. The stone is rounded at the top and ornamented with the maeander pat- tern. The day is divided into four parts, the ST. NICHOLAS CHl-RCH. POTTERSPL-RY. lines being- marked by a cross, and these are again subdivided into three, making- twelve in all, according to the Roman usage combined with the four tides of the octaval svstem. Eadric was a prince of the South Saxons livin^^- A. D, 6S5, and it may be his name here in- scribed. There is a curious circular dial built into the south wall of St, Nicholas Church at Potters- A History of the Sun Dial. 37 pur\', sliowmg' what appears to be two sets of lines, eut at different times. Possibly the dial has been turned from a vertical position and was recLit long before it was placed where it now is. The crossed lines are placed in the same position as those on the old dial at By- land, and it would seem that this one belonged to the same period and people. GRAFTON REGIS. At Grafton Regis there is a circular dial, about nine inches in diameter, built into the buttress just above the church porch, which divides the day into eight parts. Many of the early churches have several old dials built into the walls upside down, or at places obviously unfit for them, and are evi- dently relics of earlier periods, when many such rude timekeepers were commonly made. Those so used in the fourteenth century were The Timepiece of Shadows. evidently looked upon as valueless, save for building purposes, and it would seem to indicate that more accurate dials had taken their places. At Caldbeck Church, Cumberland, there is another fine specimen of early Saxon work. This is built into the south wall of the church, east of the priest's doorway. CALDBECK. It may be interesting in this connection to give a more precise account of the octaval di- vision of time common among the early north- ern nations. The twenty-four hours, or day and night, being divided into eight, and sub- divided into sixteen and thirty-two equal parts. Divided and sub-divided as follows: Morgan i eikt or tide, 4}^ to 7!>^ A. M. Dagr 3 eikt or tide, ^y^ A. M. to 41^ P. M. Aftan I eikt or tide, 4,1^ P. M. to 71^ P. M. Nott 3 eikt or tide, 7)4 P. M. to 4}^ A. M. A History of tJic Sun Dial. Each eikt or tide was ag^ain divided into two stundr, equal to about an hour and a half of our time. The division of the day and night into eight equal parts was also found among the Peruvians at the Spanish conquest, and is still in use in Iceland. The other principal divisions of time have been the Chaldean or duodecimal division of the twenty-four hours into twelve equal por- tions, still in use in China; the decimal division of the day and night followed by the Jutes and early Danes, and by the Chinese in the time of Confucius, and, even now, among the Hindoos, and the twenty-four hour system adopted by the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, and now by the civilized world generally. From the twelfth to the sixteenth century the history of dialing in Europe is a blank, there being no writings on the subject nor examples of the dials of that period now known, though it was taken up and carried to great perfection by the Arabs, and many works were written by them on the subject. From the latest Saxon dial, shown on former pages, to the earliest Renaissance dial, by which time is measured according to our present system, the day being divided into twenty-four equal hours, there is 40 TIic Timepiece of Sliadoius. a wide interval. Many dials must have been made in that time. Few mediaeval churches were without them; for to the monks, before the invention of clocks, sun dials must have been indispensable, and from, the time when the successor of Grecrorv the Great commanded that dials should be placed on all churches, down to the present age, when clocks took their places, the union has been maintained. The absence of anv sun dials attributed to that period is probably due to the fact that during- the crusades much of the learning of the East was brought to Europe, and with the gradual increase in astronomical knowledge more accurate sun dials were made, replacing the older ones, which were purposely destroved as false and misleading." The earlv Saxon sun dial survived by reason of its massive construc- tion, but it is evident that they were considered valueless by their common use for building purposes, the stones being placed in the walls without regard to the sun dials cut on them. Durmg the Renaissance the art of dialing was carried to great perfection and much ingenuity was displayed in designing unusual forms, which, however, were of no special value, and many of them in bad taste. From thewritinos A History oj the Sun Dial. 41 of that period it would seem that dials were to be found on most of the churches of London. The company of clock makers incorporated in 1 63 1 was given jurisdiction over dials as well as clocks and watches, and were instructed to search for and break up all false and deceitful works. With the Renaissance, dialing again took a prominent place among the many subjects that occupied the thinkers of the period, and shared in the impetus given all the arts. In the six- teenth century many books on the subject were printed, and many beautiful works exe- cuted. Shakespeare and other poets abound with allusions to dials. They were thought to be gifts worthy of princes to their people, and fitting monuments to the dead. Pillar dials became articles of luxury in the gardens of the rich, and vertical ones adorned the walls of churches and other public buildings. An ar- dent writer on the subject, Andrew Schoner, in 1652 gave it as his opinion that they could no more be done without than meat and drink, while their quaint conceits and elaborate carv- ings were the delight of learned and under- standing men. In the preface to the first work on this sub- 42 The Timepiece of Shadows. ject written in the English tongue, entitled " Horologiographia: the Art of Dialing. Teaching an Easie and Perfect Way to make all kinds of Dials on any Plaine Plat, howso- ever placed. Printed by Thomas Irwin, over the sign of the Checkers, Paternoster Row, in 1593," the author, Thos. Fale, quaintly writes: " The arts jmathematical, gentle reader, in re- gard to their antiquity and excellency, may be compared to any other of the liberal sciences whatsoever. For Seth who lived in the first ages of the world was commended of Josephus and Abraham of Berosus to have been skillful masters of these mysteriep, and the very name implies that in the old times, these of all others were esteemed worthy to be taught; being called, from their excellency, mathematica, that is sciences mete to be learned; these be geome- try and astronomy, from which the art of dial- ing takes its beginning. A knowledge also ancient and necessary, and therefore mastered by princes and famous men." Fale was followed by many other writers, both in English and Latin, and so highly es- • teemed was the dial set up in the king's privy garden at Whitehall, in the reign of James the First, that by order of Charles the First, then A History of the Sun Dial. 43 Prince of Wales, Mr. Edmund Gunter. Pro- fessor of astronomy at Gresham College, wrote a description of the dial, which was dedicated to King James the First. The interest of Charles the First in this subject never flagged, and to his fine taste the beautiful dial at Holy- rood is due, he having presented it on his coro- QUEEN MARY S DIAL. nation in 1633 to Queen Henrietta Maria. He constantly carried about with him a small sil- ver mathematical ring, a dial, but not a sun dial, which he gave shortly before his execution to Herbert in charge for the Duke of York. Queen Mary's dial consists of a slender col- umn mounted on three steps, and supporting a block of stone cut into many planes. It was erected in 1633, and the records show John 44 The Timepiece of Shadows. DIAL AT GLAM15 CASTLE. Mylen was paid the sum of ^468, 15s. 6d. for working and hewing the dial. The cut shows only the stone surmounting the shaft. A History of the Sun Dial. 45 To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow. Creeps in this petty pace, from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. —Mad'tlh, Act 5, Scene 5. Another beautiful dial is at Glamis Castle, near Forfar, the castle by inheritance of Mac- beth. First ]Vitcli — All hail, Macbeth ! hail to thee, Thane of Glamis. Macbeth — Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more : By Sinel's death I know I am Thane of Glamis. This dial is supposed to have been erected about the beginning of the seventeenth cen- tury. It stands on two steps ; above its base are four lions, erect, back to back, each hold- ing in its paws a shield, on which a dial is graven. These figures support a further struc- ture, and a block at the top is cut into eighty triangular planes, on which gnomons are fixed. The pillar terminates in a coronet. The intro- duction of the lions is accounted for by arms of the Strathmore family. " Watch weel ! lest thieves should enter while ye sleep, But pray to God, His favor to obtain : Except the Lord himself the city keep, "The careful watchman waketh but in vain." Another less elaborate dial than any of the preceding, but equally interesting, stands in the shrubbery near the arch of the ruined ab- 46 The Timepiece of Shadows. DIAL AT DRYIiURG AUBEY. bey of Dryburg, under which He the remains of Sir Walter and Lady Scott. The date of the dial is 1640, and it bears the heraldic motto A History of titc Sun Dial. 4; of the Scotts, " Watch weeh" It is a very graceful pillar dial, having four dials carved on it, facing to the different points of the com- pass. Another dial, interesting also for its associa- ABBOTSFORD. tion with the great writer, is that erected by him at Abbotsford. It is inscribed with the Greek text, kpxetm fap. vrs (For the night comethj, which doubtless was adopted from that on the watch of Dr. Johnson, as described by Boswell. The dial stands outside a small plantation near the house, but some vandal has 48 The Timepiece of Shado ws. Y^\\yit'uMjii l/j^^\q->} J7^^^- DIAL AT KELBURNE HOUSE. .-i History of I lie Sun Dial. 49 destroyed the gnomon. Another beautiful dial bearing this motto was erected in the grounds of Dromore Castle, County Kerry, Ireland, by the owner, R. Mahoney, Esq., in 1871. There are two large dials in the grounds of Kelburne Castle, Ayrshire, the seat of Lord Glasgow. The one of whieh we give a figure is a four-sided column, ten feet four inches high, tapering toward the top and crowned with a vane, on which the initials of David, Earl of Glasgow, and those of his wife are en- twined. The whole column is covered with variously shaped sinkings, heart, cross and shell-shaped, besides the usual vertical planes, and is dated 1787. The second dial is similar in construction, but is crowned with a simple stone ball. The column is ten feet high and stands in a stone basin full of water. When thou dost look upon my face, To learn the time of day, Think how my sliadrjw keeps its jiace, As thy life flies away. Take, mortal, this advice from me, And so resolve to spend Thy life on eartli, that heaven shall be Thy home, when time shall end. — OldMotlo. There is a very beautiful and elaborate dial at Madely Hall, Shropshire, which illustrates 5° Tlic Timepiece of Shadows. the more modern use of the Greek concave dial. It is cut from a sohd cube of stone, standing on four low feet, and elevated on a circular platform of steps. In three of its sides are cut concave circles, bordered by smaller DIAL AT MADELT HALL. hollows, round, triangular and diamond-shape. These equally serve to indicate the hour, at one time of the day or another. The top is convex. This fourfold index of swift time, On which ye shadow veereth round, Should man excite to themes sublime, Since nou't but shadows here are found. -Old Motto. ^■l }Iistoi-y of the Sun Dial. 51 Another massive dial is to be seen in the garden of Thorp Perrow, Yorkshire. It was formerly at a farm house called Saddlebow, in Lunedale, and consists of a large square block of stone, on three sides of which dials are cut. This is mounted on a pedestal of five stone steps. The whole effect is very imposing. On DIAL AT THORP PERKOW. one side is cut the motto, "Ut Hora sic vita ;" on the other, "Ut vita sic iimbra\" on the third, " Dum spcctas fiigio" and the date, 1747. Ye who, on hushed foot, marketh the gliding shade. If "wise, thou hearest : " Live ye, for I fly." To eyes and ears the shadow lends its aid, Silently crying : " Live ye, for I fly." At Biddulph, in Staffordshire, there is a fine old dial, four square, and mounted on a well- proportioned shaft. It is thought to date from the fifteenth century. A dial of this kind was 52 The Timepiece of Shadozus. put up a few years ago at Henbury, Glouces- tershire, with a drinking fountain at its base, and is a great ornament to the village. In Malverne churchyard stands a graceful niAi AT BIDDULPH. shaft, nineteen feet high, dating from the fif- teenth century, crowned with a cube and ball. The dials, on the four sides of the cube, face the cardinal points of the compass. Half way up the shaft there is a pretty niche, in which, no doubt, was a statue of the Virgin. As one sees it among the graves, the beautiful lines A History of the Sun Dial. 53 from Longfellow's translation of "The Chil- dren of the Lord's Supper" come to mind: DliL AT MALVERNE. ' Even the dial, that stood on a hillock among the departed (There full a hundred years had it stood), was embellished with blossoms, Like to the patriarch hoary, the sage of his kith and the hamlet. Who, on. his birthday, is crowned by children and children's chihiren. So stood the ancient prophet, and mute with his pencil of iron, Marked on the tablet of stone, and measured the time and its changes, While all around at his feet, an eternity slumbered in quiet." In a sadder vein, Hup^h Miller writes of that 54 The Timepiece of Shadows. sun dial, moss-grown and weather-beaten; standing in the lonely churchyard, beside the ruined chapel on Connan side, among the little mossy hillocks and lichen-covered tombstones that mark the ancient graveyard: ' Gray dial stone, I fain \\'oul(.l know What motive placed thee here, Where sadness heaves the freqtient sigh And drops the frequent tear. Like thy carved plain, gray dial stone, Grief's weary mourners be; Dark sorrow metes out time to them. Dark shade marks time on thee. " Gray dial stone, while yet thy shade Points out those hours are mine; While yet at early morn I rise And rest at day's decline. Would that the Sun, that formed thine, His bright rays beamed on me, That I, wise for the final day, Might measure time like thee." The following lines are on a dial in the form of a cross and placed in a slanting position on a pillar in Shenstone churchyard, near Lich- field. The hours are marked on the sides and the shadows are thus thrown by the arms of the cross on the cross: If o'er the dial glides a shade, redeem The time; for lo! it passes like a dream. But, if 'tis all a blank, then mark the loss Of hours, unblest by shadows of the cross. The following lines also are engraved upon a plate that supports a dial similar in construe- A History of llic Sun Dial 55 tion to the precedinij;-. It stands upon the ter- race of the hospital of S. Cross, Rugby: The passing shadows -wliich tliu sunljuams throw Athwart the cross Time's hastenini^' footsteps show; Warned by their teacliing, \\ork ere day lie o'er, Soon comes the night, w hen man can work no more. DIAL IN SHENSTONE onUKCHTAKD. Another cross dial near Lichfield bears the following motto: Sunlight falls and lo! the cross's shadow fain would teach To us the present hour by Heaven is lent; When night darkens, then no longer can the shadow preach. Avoid delay, your time is almost spent. A beautiful dial was erected in 1879, in St. Pancras Gardens, formed out of the burying ground of St. Giles and the churchyard of St. Pancras, by Lady Burdett-Coutts, and is es- 56 The Timepiece of Shadows. pecially dedicated to the unknown dead whose graves are now unseen. It is upward of thirty feet in height, and in the early decorated style. It is built of Portland stone, with a marble tab- let on each side and clustered (jranite columns at the corners. The following hnes, with the Beatitudes, are inscribed below the dial: Here in Christ's acre, where the dial stands, With pious care and borne with re\'erent hands, Lone wanderers garnered in from East and West, Among the home loved, lie in solemn rest; Severed in life, by lineage, race, faith, clime, They bide alike the last soft stroke of time. And when God's sun, which shone upon their birth, Ends his bright course and vigil o'er the earth — When o'er this disc that day's last shadows flee. And " Death no more divides, as does the sea." The dead will rise — retake the life God gave. Creation's Saviour, bless earth's opening grave. Thy word has writ thee blest — no conscience clear, In thought and word, all must thy judgment fear. Only our own wild words, which fashioned prayer When life was parting, still move the ambient air, Pleading that God who made will grant that we May, with the pure in heart the God head see. So rolls the sun, so wears the day. And measures out life's painful way, Thro' shifting scenes of shade and light To endless day or endless night. The above lines were written by Dr. Watts at the request of Lady Abney for the dial which stood in the garden at Stoke Newing- ton. The dial has since been removed to Ed- mond Castle, near Carlisle. These lines have y4 History oj the Sun Dial . 57 been carved on several dials, but none of them equaled, in beaut)' of design, the original. Beneath the window sill of the drawingr room at Sedbury Hall, near Richmond, stands a dial with the motto " Elicii, fugaccs" en- eraved on it. DIAL AT STOKE NEWINQTON. Rev. Dr. Young, the author of "Night Thoughts," set up a dial in the rectory garden at Welwyn with the same motto. A few nights after thieves proved the truth of it by entering the garden and carrying the chal away. 58 The Timepiece of Shadows. Eheu, fiigaccs (alas! how fleeting). Our life is like the shade Unseen upon its way, At rest we deem it laid, It moveth on for aye. OH WRETCHED MAN REMEMBER THOU MUST DIE SINCE ALL THINGS PASSE AND NOTHING CERTAINE BE. These lines are engraved on a handsome dial at Brougham Hall. The initials, ^ (Thomas ,-i Hist or V of the Sun Dial. 59 and Elizabetli Hroui^ham ), the date 1660, and an armorial shield are also enoraved on it. ^^^P^ BROUnHAM HALL. I Stand amid ye summer flowers, To tell ye passage of ye houres. When winter steals ye flowers away, I tell ye passinge of their day. O man, whose flesh is hut as grasse, Like summer flowers, thy life shall passe. Whyles tyme is thine laye up in store. And thou shalt live forevermore. The following design, with the description, is adapted from " Aurelia," by Greville J. Chester. " Inside the old espalier, drooping with russet ap- ples and Jargonella pears, amidst a double row of hollyhocks, spires of flame, rose color and 6o The Timepiece of Shadows. primrose, crimson and white, each as big al- most as the spire of a modern ' deestrict ' church; and within these, again, white hhes, bunches of Aaron's rod and Canterbury bells, blue larkspur, princess feather, and, later on in (t. ' \ i;:;* ti;^ ^ o 111 ^ O H- >^ ^ o y / ^ t ?? \ J \'^ s ^ \ / ■n -J (n \ y i>Z '0^ o $ ^^^~-_— -.-^^^ T DIALS, LONDON. one angle so that the seven formed an irregu- lar star, as described by John Evelyn. " I went," he says, " Oct. 5, 1694, to see the build- ing near St. Giles, where the seven streets make a star, from a Doric pillar placed in the middle of a circular area, said to be built by Mr. Neal, founder of the late lotteries." 62 The Timepiece of Shadows. " Cunningham's Handbook of London " says it was removed in July, i "jj^^ on the supposition that a considerable sum of money was lodged at its base, but the search was ineffectual. In Gay's "Trivia" we read: Where famed St. Giles' ancient limits spread, An inrailed column rears its lofty head. Here to seven streets seven dials count the day, And from each other catch the circling ray. The old column spent some years in a stone mason's yard and in 1822 was set up on the green at Weybridge as a memorial to the Duchess of York, and the block of stone on which the dials were traced, after being used for many years as a mounting block, now lies imbedded in the ground near the adjoining Ship Inn. May the dread book at our last trial. When open spread, be like this dial! May Heaven forbear to mark therein The hours made dark by deeds of sin; Those only in that record write, Which virtue, like the sun, make bright. SECTION II. WHILE pillar dials, by reason of ex- pense that naturally must attend them, are beyond the reach of many, horizontal dials can be made at almost any cost, from the elaborately carved andi gilded dials that adorn the walls of so many English country houses and churches, to the simply painted dial beneath the eaves of some Italian cottage. Any bright boy from the in- structions in this book can readily calculate and construct a dial that will be both a source of pleasure and instruction to himself and others, and perhaps others older may not only soliloquize with Henry VI. on the field of Tow- ton, but also carry into execution: O God! methinks it were a happy life To be no better than a homely swain; To sit upon a hill, as I do now, To carve out dials, quaintly, point by point, Thereby to see the minutes, how they run: How many make the hour, full complete, How many hours bring about the day, How many days will hnish up the year, How many years a mortal man may live. When that is known, then to divide the times. So many hours must I tend my i^ock, So many hours must I take my rest, So many hours must I contemplate, So many hours must I sport myself, So many days my ewes have been with young, So many days ere the poor fools will yean, So many years ere I shall shear the fleece. So minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, Passed over to the end they were create^"73 THOMAS SMCTH SAMUEL iTEl^£N6 ow] CUuTdni/av; the lati- tude of the place for which the dial is intended (ui the example 40"). Draw through x, from E. the line E E, and the angle D E F^ will be that of the stile. Draw the line A' A' through (f A* at any convenient point, as J, parallel to A B, and as long as the paper will permit. This line is called the line of contingence, or touch line. Measure from the intersection / the least or perpendicular distance to the line E A, and set it off on the line C D, from J toward C. Froni the point G so found de- scribe the semicircle H J I, with the radius^ 6^. This is called the eciuinoctial circle. Draw the line A^/ through G^ and parallel to A' A'. Di- vide the semicircle H J I into twelve ecjual parts; place a ruler on each of these divisions and the centre G; draw the lines G L and mark the points where the ruler touches the line K K; then froin the centre E draw through each of these points on K K the lines A 5, A 4, etc., which are the hour lines for the dial; ./ 96 The Timepiece of Shadows. ^ n3 !>. / <>