CHAPTER XVII
SUNDIALS, CLOCKS, AND BRASS INSTRUMENTS
The mystery of dialling—Some old dials—Antique clocks—Old watches—The weather—Scientific instruments.
The modern man can scarcely realize what it must have been in this England of ours when clouds obscured the sun, and thick mists drew a veil over the shadow cast by the gnomon, before clocks were known. The time of day was of less importance when the sundial on the church tower, or on a pillar erected at some convenient place, had to be consulted, when the sun shone it is true, but even then many must have inwardly fretted and rebelled against the uncertainty. Reader, have you ever spent a day away from public clocks in the country when the sky was overcast without a watch in your pocket? If not, do it now, and the result will be startling. It will create a sympathetic touch with the past, and bring vividly to mind the trials of patience which had to be endured when under such conditions inscriptions on dials were read, but no clear line marked the onward march of Sol.
The Mystery of Dialling.
Dialling is a science which few except experts understand now; the antiquary takes little note of it as he gazes upon the old dial plate and makes out the inscription upon it. The collector gladly buys the brass dial with its quaint lettering and division marks without even knowing where it came from, or what kind of stone column or pillar it originally capped. Yet there is far more interest in an old sundial installed in a modern garden amidst reconstructed old-world surroundings when the origin of the relic is known.
We have no record of the type of sundial referred to in Isaiah xxxviii, 8: "Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees which is gone down on the sun-dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward." There are, however, records of the sundial of the Chaldean astronomer Perosus, who lived about 340 B.C. It consisted of a hollow hemisphere placed with its rim horizontal, having a head or globule fixed so that as long as the sun shone above the horizon the shadow of the head fell on the inside of the hemisphere.