The Sun Clock
When you have been able to find the North Star it will be very easy to set up a sun-dial. This device is not so valuable now as standard time is universally used. If you know the difference between "sun time" and standard time, the sun-dial can be referred to with a fair amount of accuracy and many people regard it as a curiosity.
Select a place where the sun shines all day and the ground is level. Set up a post or stake perpendicular and firm. At night go and "sight" a straight stick at the North Star and fasten it securely. This stick will now be parallel to the axis of the earth and its shadow will fall at the same line on any given hour no matter what season of the year it may be. At noon by the sun the shadows of the slanting stick and the upright one will coincide. This gives you the "sun noon" and the time by a standard watch or clock will tell you what correction to apply to your dial to convert its time into standard. Having once established the noon, or "no hour" mark the I, II, III, IV, V, and VI with stakes. Then calculate the correct sun time of VI A.M. by your standard watch and stake out the morning hours. Halves and even quarters can be marked between if you wish.
A flower dial can be made by having your upright post a pretty tall one, say ten or even twenty feet, and planting rows of flowers like spokes of a wheel along the hour lines. It may be possible even to select such as are likely to open at or near the indicated hour. The entire semicircle of pegs will also make a pretty finish with tall ornamental foliage plants or shrubs.
Practice
Make a sun-dial on the ground, mark the hours with stones or sticks, and see if it shows the time every day.
Among the Stars
Scouts must be able to find their way by night, but unless they practise it they are very apt to lose themselves. At night distances seem much greater, and land-marks are hard to see.
When patrolling in dark places, keep closer together, and in the dark or in the woods or caves keep in touch with each other by catching hold of the end of the next Scout's staff.
The staff is also useful for feeling the way.
Winter Evenings.—Cut out a quantity of little stars from stamp edging. Take an old umbrella, open, and stick the stars inside it, in the patterns of the chief constellations, then hold it overhead, and turn it once round for twenty-four hours, making the stars rise in the east.
The sun and the moon appear almost the same size as a rule. When we are a little nearer the sun, in winter, he looks a trifle larger than the moon.
To study the constellations, go out when the stars are bright, armed with a star map and a bicycle lamp to read it by, and spread a rug on the ground to lie on, or have a deck-chair, or hammock. Watch for meteors in August and November.
Let each girl try to draw a sketch map of a given constellation, from memory.