CHAPTER II

NOON-MARKS, SPOT-DIALS, WINDOW-DIALS "The learned line showeth the city's hour."
— Motto on Sun-dial in Milan.
" Little sun upon the ceiling Ever moving, ever stealing
Moments, minutes, hours away. May no shade forbid thy shining While the heavenly sun declining
Calls us to improve the day."
— Motto on Cci ling-dial at
" Whilst Phoebus on me shines Then view my shades and lines."
— Motto on Manx Dial.
WONDER whether you, my gentle reader, have ever read a book entitled Mar- garet, which was published just half a century ago. Its author was Reverend Syl- vester Judd, a New England minister of severest Puritan rearing and environment. He says in the curious
: spent in writing it over ten years ; meaning by that the hard-won hours of leisure of a decade
32
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Noon-marks, Spot-dials, Window-dials 33
of the life of a New England " painful preacher." The first part of the book offers, without doubt, the most valuable picture which exists of domestic life in a small New England community in the years that " take our country as it emerges from the Revolution," and for half a century thereafter; not a grandly rounded picture as a whole, but a photographic presentation of details. On the sin- gular charm of the book I do not dwell, as all are not sensible of it. The author says in his fanciful "phantasmagorical" first chapter or introduction :-
" The child is MARGARET, of whom we have many things to say, and whom we hope to reveal more perfectly to you. So far as this book is concerned, she is for you all as much as if she were your own child ; and if you cared anything about her when you did not know her, we desire that your regards may not subside when you do know her, even if she be not your own child; and we dedicate this memoir of her to ALL who are interested in her and care to read about her."
By the engaging simplicity of this introduction a spell is thrown on many readers. The author said in a later edition that he had been called "unequal, grotesque, mermaiden, abrupt'1 -and he was called so with truth, though I scarcely am sure what his adjective " mermaiden " means ; the book is certainly whimsical and capricious, for the last part portrays as unnatural a picture of life as the first two parts are true. It is all quaint, however, in the truest sense of that (of late) overworked term. The book always seems to me to have been composed under a certain
34 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
inspiration, an obsession of some spirit of the past. Of course the fact that it was ten years in the writing thereof would not carry out my theory; we always think of true inspiration in the form of a tour de force. As a valuable depository of ancient words, phrases, usages, and things, of terms and expressions of colo- nial days, it should be studied page by page and line upon line, by every historical writer, whether of the drama or of definitions in the dictionary, to which, indeed, it has contributed much valuable evidence.
I turn naturally to Margaret to find whether sun- dials were in common use in New England after the Revolution ; here is a bit of a scene in an opening chapter, entitled, "Work and Beauty; an Impres- sion of the Real," — it is but a simple asking of the time-o'-the-day : —
" The child Margaret sits in the door of her house on a low stool with a small wheel, winding spools, ' quilling ' for her mother, who, in a room near by, is mounted in a loom, weaving and smoking ; the fumes of her pipe min- gling with the whizz of the shuttle and the jarring of the lathe and the clattering of treadles. From a windle the thread is conducted to the quills, and buzz, buzz, goes Margaret's wheel, while a gray squirrel, squatted on her shoulder, inspects the operation with profound gravity.
" ' Look up the chimney, child,' says the mother, ' and see what time it is.'
u ' I don't know how,' replies Margaret.
" ' I suppose we must get the Master to learn you your a b c's in this matter,' rejoined the mother. c When the sun gets in one nick, it is ten o'clock •, when it reaches the stone that bouges out there, it is dinner time. How many quills have you done ? '
Noon-marks, Spot-dials, Window-dials 35
"'The basket is full, and the box besides. Chilion said I might go and sail with him.'
" ' We have a great deal to do. Miss Gisborne's flannel is promised the last of the week, and it must be drawn in to- morrow. I want you to clean the skans ; there is a bunch of lucks down cellar, bring them up ; get some plantain and dandelion on the smooth for greens ; you must pick over these beans, put some kindlers under the pot, then you may go.' '
Now ! There is a half page of plainest descrip- tion of the simplest home-life ; yet almost every line, certainly every sentence, contains a word or phrase, or refers to a deed as obsolete and as abso- lutely incomprehensible to a New England country child to-day, as would be a sun-dial to him, or as was the time-marking of the open chimney-place to Margaret. I venture to assert, also, that half of my readers will possess a like ignorance. Nowhere throughout the book is a sun-dial referred to; and to me this proof is absolute of their rarity. If there had been a sun-dial, Margaret would certainly have run to it. Nor in the extraordinary Boston to which Margaret fled in her shadowed girlhood was there a sun-dial in the Wiswell garden ; nor was there one in the wholly artificial garden and surprising home created for her as a wife.
One of the simplest devices by which the midday hour was made known to dwellers in rural homes earlier than Margaret's day was a noon-mark. The dweller in town or village had the noon bell from the church steeple, but on nearly every farm-house was a noon-mark, usually by a frequented door or window.
36 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
I have seen them many a time on the threshold of a barn, at the kitchen doorstep, or outside the pantry. Country folk grew very skilful in telling the relative time from a noon-mark. I knew one old woman who, by her kitchen noon-mark, could tell the hours from ten to four without a variation of four minutes, which is in general all that wcrald be ex- pected from a watch — from a woman's watch. Noon-marks have been set in the form of a line of colored pebbles in well-laid earth or cement at the base of some stationary pole or flagstaff. We have them in several of our " Homes " — or refuges for life-wrecked sailors and life-beaten soldiers.
To whatever country we wander we find among all uncivilized peoples this vertical pole fixed in the ground as a primitive gnomon. In India and other Asiatic lands the natives are wise in reading the hours of this simple dial, making it serve as an exact chronometer. The Labrador Indians when on the hunt stalk on in advance of the train with their arms ; while the women, heavily laden with provi- sions and means of shelter drag along slowly after. When the lords and masters begin to think of food-time, or wish in any way to leave some guide as to their progress for the squaws, they thrust an upright stick or spear in the snow, and draw in the snow the exact line of the shadow then cast. The women, toiling painfully along, note the spear, and the progress of the shadow, and know closely the difference of time. They know, too, whether they dare to linger for a few minutes' rest, or if they must hastily catch stick or spear and wearily hurry on.
Noon-marks, Spot-dials, Window-dials 37
In Upper Egypt the hours for work on a water- wheel are still fixed by primitive sun-dials which are scarce more than noon-marks. One of these sun-dials is made by extending a maize or dhurra stalk north and south on two forked uprights. At the side are set in the earth pegs which evenly divide the space between the sunrise and sunset shadows of this dhurra stalk. In the other dial the gnomon is a vertical stick. Often the pegs are nearly covered by the soil, so firmly are they pressed in, in order to avoid being moved by the feet of cattle or men. The space between two pegs is called an alka from an Arabic root meaning to hang or hitch on. The harnessing of a bullock to a water-wheel is merely the hitching on of a loop of harness over a hook. To the question, What do you do when the shadow reaches this peg ? the answer always came, " We hitch on another bullock." These sun-dials are con- structed entirely upon observation, with no scientific knowledge. An English scientist was once asked by the celebrated Sheik Daig, as a test of his learning, to construct a sun-dial. While the Englishman was making full explanations of latitudes, horizontal planes, etc., the Sheik abruptly interrupted by thrust- ing his spear in the ground and marking therefrom on the ground the exact lines of shadow which would fall at certain hours of prayer. Though this primitive time-teller still is used, there are no ancient Egyptian sun-dials known ; nor is it anywhere stated in ancient writings that the Egyptians used their obelisks as gnomons.
At Settle in Yorkshire, England, rises a hill
Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
Natural Sun-dial at Settle, Yorkshire, England.
called Castleberg. Until about a hundred years ago a great mass of rock on that hill formed a natural sun-dial. It is shown rather crudely on this page in a reproduction of an old engraving, given in Smith's Old Yorkshire. It is thus described in the letters of Bishop Pococke, written in 1750, and now edited for the Camden Society : —
"Crossing the Ribble, we came in a quarter of a mile to Settle, a little town situated under a high rocky hill ; on the lower part of which, four stones being placed, they serve as a sun-dial to the country for three or four miles southward, as they know what hour of the morn it is the shadow comes to them from nine to twelve."
Noon-marks, Spot-dials, Window-dials 39
The stones have disappeared, but the memory of the sun-dial still lingers as well as the drawings and engravings of it. Many " natural " sun-dials exist. In Ireland as late as 1813 very few persons owned clocks and watches, and each settlement had some natural dial by which the nine watches of the day were shown by the sun's passage over certain moun- tain-peaks, or over set pyramids of stones if the natural formations did not afford a suitable object as a marking place. In Norway similar modes have been used to mark the time. Simpler shadow-marks are known to many dwellers in isolated homes ; and I well recall the deploration I heard some years ago in a New England village because a certain great pine tree which had cast a much-consulted noon- mark had fallen in a storm.
Since the year 1792 an obelisk has stood in the Piazza Monte Citorio at Rome. It has had a varied history, having been lost to sight for many years. Its entire service in casting a noon-mark, after it was first brought from Egypt, is thus told by old Pliny : -
" As for that Obelisk that stands as a gnomon in Mars Field, Augustus Caesar devised a wonderfull means that it should serve to mark out the noontide, with the length of day and night according to the Shadowes which the Sun doth yeeld by it ; for hee placed underneath at the foot of the said Obelisk, according to the bignes and height thereof, a pavement of broad stone, wherein a man might know the fixt hour at mid-day, when the shadow was equal to the Obelisk ; and how little by little according to certain Rules (which are lines of brasse inlaid within the said stone) the days of increase or decrease."
4O Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
Many noon-marks in foreign edifices are interest- ing; one at the church of St. Petronio, Bologna, is 220 feet in length and was traced in 1653. Another is at St. Sulpice in Paris. At Salisbury Cathedral a perpendicular meridian line has been marked on the north boundary wall of the Close. The spire of the cathedral serves as a gnomon and throws its shadow at noon. The word Meredies is engraved inside the line.
When the city of Albany had as a mayor a man of parts, Hon. John Boyd Thatcher, he caused to be placed in front of the City Hall a carefully traced brass noon-mark, or, more properly speaking, a meridian line. This serves to invite a vast number of inquiries and to elicit some surprising answers; one being that it " marked the end of a telephone " ; another that it marked the boundary of an Indian grant ; another from a boy who said in all serious- ness that the mayor put it in for the boys to take " cat slides " on — a cat-slide being, I must explain to those who know not, a bit of clean ice on a city street whereon a boy — yes, and a man, too — can by a slight run have impetus to slide swiftly and happily on one or both feet to the very end. The brass meridian line serves so well this purpose, it cannot be wondered that the boy assumed it to be its only reason for being.
I would like to see these fine brass meridan lines much more frequent than we do on the floor of broad vestibules, of open porches, of large plazas, of paved terraces ; wherever the clear sun rays can shine and prove the use of the noon-mark ; and in
Noon-marks, Spot-dials, Window-dials 41
one place I should like to see a noon-mark which would be of world-wide importance- -at Wash- ington.
I beg to call the attention of the Government of the United States and the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, to an opportunity of easily making the finest sun-dial in the entire world, or if not that, the finest noon-mark. The Washington Monument, with its superb shaft 555 feet in height, most glorious of all gnomons, traces unmarked day by day its wonderful parabolic path on the green- sward around it. What a beautiful sight it would be if the Government would order the tracing of its analemma and mark the hours with beds of flowers ! What an instructive and inspiring object it would be to all who visit that great Monument ; there might arise from its inspiration some thought- ful youth, another Ferguson or Wren, to add to the list of the great mathematicians of the world. If a sun-dial is not traced, a meridan line positively should be set ; a line of stone or white marble, a noon-mark in the grass. This would not equal the dial, but would be better than the unmarked round of to-day.
We had the meridian line in Washington surveyed and marked in noble fashion when the City and District were first laid out ; and the most interesting meridian line in the whole world should naturally be to Americans this famous national meridian line of the United States ; but it has fared at our hands as though it were an object of obloquy instead of pride.
Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
On the 1 5th of April in 1791 there was laid with solemn and elaborate Masonic ceremonial the corner- stone of the District of Columbia ; now half-for- gotten and hidden from view, this mighty symbol of our vast nation forms part of the foundation
wall of the lighthouse at Jones Point near Alexan- dria, Virginia. The ten miles of the District were marked during the following year with mile- stones, which bore num- bers, and on the District side the words, "Juris- diction of the United States," on the other the names of the surrounding states, dates, etc. These stones are known in their diction Stones." As it was then the custom of
Drawing of the Meridian Stone of various great nations to
reckon longitude from
their own capitals, — and a bad system it was, — our Revolutionary ancestors promptly proposed that the new nation should have its meridian line. On L'En- fant's plan for the Federal city appears a mark for an historic column (now the site of the Emancipation Statue in Lincoln Park), and from this column all distances through the continent were to be calcu- lated. But when Ellicott, another engineer, laid off
Noon-marks, Spot-dials, Window-dials 43
the streets, avenues, and " appropriations," as they were called, he began by drawing a true meridian line through the "Congress House," or Capitol.
But the Meridian Hill known to old Washing- tonians is not at the Capitol, but north of the White House, at the head of Sixteenth Street, so there is another meridian to consider. In a letter (now in the State Department) written to President Jefferson by Nicholas King, it appears that King laid but a meridian line along Sixteenth Street in 1804. The letter is given by Mr. Marcus Baker in his inter- esting article, " Surveys and Maps of the District of Columbia." An obelisk was planted on the top of a hill north of the president's house ; and two stones were set near the site of the Washington Monument. This obelisk is gone and the site un- marked. Another was set near the Capitol and called the Capitol Stone ; this is also vanished and the site unmarked. Another stone, known as the Jefferson Stone, was also set. The site of this is known.
Admiral Porter had a house at the head of Six- teenth Street; on the southern lawn stood a low sandstone block on which was placed a brass sun- dial. This has been called the Meridian Stone; it was removed and is now doing service as a carriage step at the corner of R and Fourteenth streets. This was not, so Mr. Baker infers, the original stone. The true meridian stone, set in 1804, stood where placed until some time in the seventies, when Merid- ian Hill was graded down. The stone was carried to the District building and thrown in a rubbish heap.
44 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
Later, when Lieutenant Hoxie was on duty, it was sent to the Reform School and set up as a hitching post. It is about four feet in height and was origi- nally square in section and slightly tapering. It bore the inscription lettered thus : —
Longitude
West
from Greenwich
76° 56' 5"
The corners have been cut off, and this lettering only remains : —
igit
est
om
enwi
56'
There are many ways of making a noon-mark. A very unscientific but very satisfactory one is this : On either April 15, June 15, September i, or De- cember 24, the four days of the year when the sun and the clock are exactly together, secure a watch or clock, known to be exact by some standard time. Then on the surface where you desire to draw your noon-mark cast a straight shadow at twelve by your watch, and mark it definitely. Another way ; is on any clear night, hang (out-of-doors) two plumb-lines in such a position that on sighting from one to the other the North Star will be in exact range. Drive two stakes exactly in the place of the two plumb- lines, and when the shadow at noon of one stake
Noon-marks, Spot-dials, Window-dials 45
extends precisely to the other stake, that shadow-line makes an accurate noon-mark.
An interesting noon-mark has been for many years at Durham Cathedral, England, and is shown in a curious manner. About ten feet from the floor a thin piece of stone having in it a circular hole
Sun-dial at Elm Hirst, Wilmslow, England.
about an inch in diameter is inserted in a window. Through this opening shine the rays of the sun, throwing a bright spot of light, which at noon falls on the meridian line. This contrivance at Dur- ham Cathedral forms one of a class called spot- dials, or when evidenced from reflected light, " re- flective-dials." Such was the dial made by Sir Isaac Newton when a boy. He painted a dial- face on the ceiling of his room, and the spot of
46 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
light was cast upon the hour lines by means of a bit of mirror fixed horizontally in the window ledge. This was in the house of his grandmother, Mrs. Ayscough. The plaster ceiling with the marks of the hours, etc., is still preserved in the new house which was built on the site of the house wherein this "ceiling-dial" or "reflective-dial" was originally made.
I own a number of old books on dialling, and I find these ceiling-dials a "favorite conceit" of the old diallers ; one of them says : " I confesse it is a pleasant thing to behold how Art hath taught the Sunne to trace out those Lines and Parallels by Re- flection from a Glasse, which his direct beames can never shine upon." In Ley bourne's Dialling (my copy is a vast folio of the year 1700) many rules; and designs are given. One of his window-dials I copy facing this page. In his rules many curious and antiquated terms appear, such as " quarrys '" and "quarrels" of glass; the "jaums of a jetty window," the cheek-posts," etc.
By such rules as these was young Newton allured to try his skill. Leybourne's rules for making win- dow-dials and reflective-dials are very clear and easy to understand.
An extraordinary ceiling-dial was made by Sir Christopher Wren when but a mere boy; it must be recalled that dialling was then a part, not only of an advanced education, but also of a plainer everyday schooling. Wren had translated, in 1647, Ought- red's Geometrical Dialling into Latin, when he was fourteen, and it had been published ; and he had
Window-dial, Leybourne's Dialling.
Noon-marks, Spot-dials, Window-dials 47
thus acquired a knowledge both of mathematics to make this ceiling-dial, and of Latin for the inscrip- tion, which, translated, reads thus: —
"Chr. Wren : One who was content to depict upon this narrow ceiling the pattern of the sky, obtained from Phoe- bus the gift of a rival of his rays, an image upon a mirror; that would pass over this heaven with borrowed light and make an effigy of his yearly course. 1648 years after the time wherein in very truth Man was made God from a Virgin's womb, and in the i6th year of (the maker's) youthful age."
In this inscription the dates are formed by chrono- grams— the capitalization of certain letters in the last lines of the inscription ; this was one of the fashionable fancies in inscriptions of that day. I have referred more fully to Wren and his interesting teacher in my chapter on " Jngeniose Diallers."
This ceiling-dial was but one of the "universally curious '" works of what Evelyn called that " pro- digious young scholar Mr Chr Wren." Evelyn saw at Oxford " a variety of shadows, dyals, pro- spective and many other artificial, mathematical, and magical curiosities, a way-wiser, a thermometer, a monstrous magnet, and other sections, a ballance on a demi-arch" — these the work of Wren and his teacher.
A way-wiser was an instrument known now as an odometer or perambulator- - the Latin derivatives having replaced the simple old word, meaning a something to make you wise or knowing of the way you have fared. A way-wiser seems to have been for many years a sort of plaything of scientists and
48 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
the scientific work of dilettantes. It has also been of practical use. Our own Franklin laid out our pre-Revolutionary post-roads with one attached to a comfortable chaise in which, he rode, followed by carts bearing mile-stones. It has been more for- mally used in the preparation of our state maps and other important topographical work. In 1657 Evelyn saw Colonel Blount's way-wiser, which was attached to a coach, which " exactly measured the miles and showed them by an index as we went on." This way-wiser could measure up to one thousand miles. It was deemed a wonderful instrument and a rare one ; but to-day along the roads so leisurely surveyed by Franklin, nearly every bicycle that flashes past his still-standing mile-stones bears a cyclometer — a modern and cheap way-wiser, beside which Colonel Blount's machine stands in the same relation as a sun-dial to a Waterbury watch.
A very interesting spot-dial was made by using a lens or sun-glass. In a garden in Cheshire, at Elm Hirst, Wilmslow (page 45), is a lens-dial on which is the appropriate motto: "WHATSOEVER DOTH MAKE MANIFEST is LIGHT" (Ephesians v. 13).
Another use of a magnifying glass in a dial is shown in what are known as cannon-dials ; these are found in several European towns. One is given on page 49 which was made for the Sultan of Morocco by Messrs F. Barker & Son of London. It is a beautiful instrument, being made of fine brass inlaid with white metal, and is an accurate timekeeper. In these cannon-dials the glass is so fixed that at exact noon the concentrated rays of the sun ignites the
Noon-marks, Spot-dials, Window-dials 49
Cannon-dial of Sultan of Morocco.
powder in a touchhole and fires the cannon. Small sun-dials have been made after this pattern.
There is an interesting and unusual lens-dial at Frankford Arsenal near Philadelphia, which is mounted on the muzzle of an old iron cannon set vertically in that part of the arsenal grounds on which faces the government cartridge factory. It is shown on page 50. This ingenious lens dial was designed and placed in its present position by the late Captain William Prince, Ordnance Department U. S. Army, in the year 1874. The mounting is an unusually satisfactory one, for not only is it in good taste, being suited to the surroundings, but also of
50 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
positive stability, warranting a perfect spirit-level for the dial-face, which is of much importance for the rather delicate contrivance which the dial dis- plays for marking accurate time. It is protected against special stress of wear and weather by a hinged
iron cap or cover.
The dial consists of a triangular gnomon mounted on a circular plate. The plate has Roman numerals for the hours, and exact tables of corrections to be made for true local time. The gnomon has a special feature for in- dicating the corrected time at noon ; this is by means of a lens so mounted in its inclined edge as to project an image of the sun on to the annular surface of an opening through the gnomon. On this annular surface is inscribed a fig- ure 8 loop of two equidistant lines between which the image of the sun appears at local noon in some part of the loop, varying with the time of the year. Unfortunately this contrivance does not show in the illustration. A similar arrangement may be found on a sun-dial at Monaco, where one is gravely told that it is "the only perfect sun-dial in the world."
Cannon-dial at Arsenal, Frank- ford, Pennsylvania,
Noon-marks, Spot-dials, Window-dials 51
There is something very suggestive of sentiment in the thought that in a spot-dial you tell the hour by a mark of light instead of shadow ; and such a dial needs a special motto.
Several mottoes are given in Leadbetter's treatise called Mecbanick Dialling, 1756. Their being in the same metre gives them the appearance of being machine poetry, written for or by Leadbetter for these spot-dials.
SEE THE LITTLE DAY-STAR MOVING LIFE AND TIME ARE WORTH IMPROVING
SEIZE THE MOMENTS WHILE THEY STAY SEIZE AND USE THEM LEST YOU LOSE THEM
AND LAMENT THE WASTED DAY.
Another reads : —
SHINING SPOT FOREVER SHINING BRIGHTEST HOURS HAVE NO ABIDING
USE THY GOLDEN MOMENTS WELL LIFE IS WASTING DEATH IS HASTING
DEATH CONSIGNS TO HEAVEN OR HELL.
In France a dial wherein the hour is shown by a ray of light is called Cadran a La Capucinc. On such a dial in a Franciscan convent are these verses: —
Pourquoi sur ce cadran solaire
Ne voit-on point V 'ombre ordinaire?
C'est que consacrant dam ce lieu
Tons notre temps a louer dieu. II faut pour le marquer lu plus noble maniere C'est d'emprunter au del un rayon de lumiere.
52 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
WHY DO YOU NOT SEE THE USUAL SHADOW ON THIS SUN-DIAL ? IT IS BECAUSE IN THIS PLACE ALL OUR TIME IS CONSECRATED
TO PRAISING GOD.
WE DESIRE TO MARK IT IN THE NOBLEST MANNER, AND THAT IS BY BORROWING A RAY OF LIGHT FROM
HEAVEN.
The shadow of the gnomon may be cast upon a window, and can thus be seen from within the house. This is called a refractive dialling, or a window- dial ; and in thus viewing it from within doors, the shadow will appear to go round as do the hands of a clock, while in an ordinary vertical dial the reverse motion is seen.
These are sometimes of stained glass, and in Eng- land have been placed in churches. A fine one is shown on page 53, it is leaded into a window at Kersal Cell, near Manchester, England ; the home of John Byrom, who wrote " Christians Awake ! ' I don't know why these nearly all have a fly painted on them- -perhaps as a remote pun that the hours fly. The window-dial at Lambeth Palace, one at the pri- vate chapel at Berkeley Castle, both have the fly. Another has both a fly and a butterfly- -the latter being the emblem of immortality.
The motto, Dum spectas fugio, is a favorite motto for these window-dials : WHILE THOU LOOKEST i FLY. Arthur Young, in his Six Weeks Tours y tells of two window-dials at the Rectory, North-hill, Bed- fordshire. He says that the fly had the wings painted on one side of the glass, and the body and legs on the other, so to deceive fully the spectator. The date was 1664.
Noon-marks, Spot-dials, Window-dials 53
The ancient Greeks wrote of measuring the day by the course of a shadow, and speak of a six-foot shadow, a ten-foot shadow. It has been suggested
Window-dial at Kersal Cell, Manchester, England.
that this was each man's own shadow as thrown on the ground ; long in the morning and at night, and short at midday, and that he measured it with his own foot, as did the Malays in Madagascar.
The early successors of the noon-mark, such as the water-clock or clepsydra, were known to many
54 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
nations in some form, though it is told that the clepsydra was invented 2636 B.C. by a Chinese scientist. Duke Chan, who is alleged to be the in- ventor of the compass about 1130 B.C., was the first to employ the clepsydra as a timepiece. Chinese poetry, even the most ancient, abounds in graceful and sentimental allusions to the clepsydra. A waiting wife complains of the leaden foot of time in the form of verse called a "stop-short" : —
"It seems that the Clepsydra
Has been filled up with the Sea To make the long, long nights appear An endless time to me.
" The incense-stick is burnt to ash,
The water-clock is stilled, The midnight breeze blows sharply by, And all around is chilled."
Even by 1851 only one clepsydra was in official use; it was in the watch-tower of the city of Canton; my sister saw it there, still in use, in the year 1899. It consisted of four copper jars on a flight of steps, the top of each reaching to the bottom of the next in succession ; small troughs connected them all. The largest jar held about ninety-three pints of water. A wooden index was set in the lower jar and rose as it filled with water. It was set at five in the morning and five in the afternoon. When the half-day was ended, the water from the lower jar was ladled back into the upper one by two watchmen, who also beat the twelve watches of the day on drums. The Chinese do not number the hours ; they simply name these twelve divisions and desig-
Noon-marks, Spot-dials, Window-dials 55
nate each with a sign. This clepsydra is so rude a contrivance that it hardly seems fit for a race so civilized as the Chinese. These Cantonese folk would be far out in their time-reckoning if they depended on this ancient clepsydra and their time- sticks, which are sold by the man who has charge of this " copper-jar-dropper," as it is called. These are referred to in the second stop-short quoted above : " The incense-stick is burnt to ash." These time-sticks were made of sawdust (usually of a cer- tain wood), a slight mixture of glue, rolled into even cylinders two feet long, and divided into hours. They consumed without flame, and burnt up in half a day. They are like the time-candles of other countries, and share the interest always inspired by every time-keeper. I remember well the fascination which King Alfred's " candle-clocks " had for me in my childhood ; as told in a little book of anecdotes of English kings and princes. I recall well making candle-clocks from common wax candles, and our disappointment when they would not burn four hours precisely, as did the king's.
A burning candle was used in England and France in many special cases to mark a short extent of time ; as an auction " by inch of candle," wherein the last bidder as the flame expired was the successful one. Servants also were bidden for and paupers " boarded out " by inch of candle.
The ancient clepsydra was sometimes extremely ornamental, the copper jars being made in the shape of dragons and other figures, and the index was also ornamented. Another clepsydra was shaped like a
56 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
bird ; the water fell from its beak and was received in a vessel on a balance. Another water-clock was a perforated copper vessel which was placed in a tub of water and filled gradually and sunk every hour. The Malays in their proas use a similar rude water-clock made of a perforated cocoanut shell. A more complicated machine which represented the motions of the heavenly bodies was run by falling water ; it was a huge hollow globe perforated on its surface so as to afford, when lighted from within, a representation of the starry sky at night.
The Li/iwati, a profound mathematical treatise of the twelfth century, was written by an Indian astrono- mer, who was "grievously baffled" of the marriage of his daughter named Liliwati. It was predicted that she should die unmarried ; but the father de- termined to avert that disgrace. He found from astrologers a lucky hour, and secured a bridegroom. But the hour passed without being noted on the clepsydra, for a pearl from the girl's bridal dress fell into the bowl and closed the opening ; and the bride- groom departed. The father consoled his daughter by writing this wonderful book which would trans- mit her name better than could any children. It is translated into English and published by a Calcutta firm, and is of great interest and research.
Clocks and watches are much cherished in China ; ancient ones of very antiquated appearance are con- stantly seen in use ; some of these are like the " Nu- remburg eggs." As Chinese gentlemen carry two watches and are particular to have them harmonize, clock and watch menders find constant employment.
Noon-marks, Spot-dials, Window-dials 57
For their watch-making skill the Chinese are said to be indebted to the teachings of the Jesuit missions.
The European water-clock of the seventeenth cen- tury is described in Kirchner's Ars Umbrae et Lucis ; and in the form there presented is almost universally attributed to the Jesuits. Pewter clepsydras were made in considerable numbers in France.
I am informed that a picturesque water-clock or "hour-bowl," shaped like the Chinese water-bowl, is still found in remote parts of India; picturesque as absolutely simple things can be, and generally are. A globular copper bottle or bowl has a hole in the bottom. The water runs slowly through the little orifice until the bowl is empty, when a waiting atten- dant strikes the empty vessel a resounding blow with a hammer; then he refills it, and hangs it up to drip again. Of course this has to be made of an exact size proper to measure an hour.
It is told that in some Oriental countries a stone is flung in the bowl and thus resounding strikes the hour. The opening stanza of Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam in the original edition ran thus : — -
" Awake, for Morning in the bowl of Night Has flung the stone that puts the Stars to flight ;
And lo ! the hunter of the East has caught The Sultan's turret in a noose of light."
I should be convinced that these stirring lines referred to an emblematic use of the ancient Oriental time-bowl, save for one thing : they were not written by the old Persian at all, but were wholly Fitz- gerald's thought and words ; and help to prove,
58 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
what we all know, that this is a case when the trans- lation is far greater than the original. Sand-glasses, or hour-glasses, were first made about the year 330 A.D. There are other dials of the ancients which fascinate the antiquary, — wind-dials or anem- oscopes,— in which the courses of the winds were marked on a dial connected with a weather-vane. They have been found in Pompeii and in Rome. The most famous was known as The Tower of the Winds, an octagonal horologium which was one of the wonders and beauties of ancient Athens. It is pic- tured opposite this page. The bronze Triton which served as a weather-vane has vanished, but eight sculptures remain. These bold flying figures repre- sent the winds, and under each was once a sun-dial. There was also a water-clock. As the tower was forty feet in height and twenty-seven in diameter, it formed a striking object. Boreas, the North wind, blew on a conch-shell ; the South wind poured rain from a water-jar ; Zephyrus carried a mantle filled with flowers.
This Tower of the Winds is the oldest known construction for observing the winds, but a similar pillar covered with copper was at Constantinople ; both of these towers had weather-vanes. For a time it would seem that only important buildings, chiefly churches, carried vanes. In France in the twelfth century none but noblemen could have weather- vanes, and for a time no noblemen save those who had planted their standards on some rampart at the storming of a town or citadel. These vanes then bore the knight's arms. On the Bayeux Tapestry
Tower of the Winds, Athens.
Noon-marks, Spot-dials, Window-dials 59
ships appear, and these have vanes on the masts. Anemoscopes, to show the duration of the wind, and anemometers, to measure its force, have been invented in many shapes ; one resembled a wind-mill. Both instruments were in use in England in Queen Anne's time. They were fixed in coffee-houses where mer-
J
chants and ship-owners congregated, and where winds and weather formed a constant and natural topic of conversation.
It is probable that clocks may have been regarded with suspicious eye by the distrustful and supersti- tious pedants of the day when they were first made. Everything unusual, and above all everything clever, was adjudged to be akin to witchcraft- -until it was proved not to be. The very first naming of a clock (so-asserted), in 1449, is by one Dr. Peacock, Bishop of Chichester, and he says : -
" In all Holie Scripture it is not expressid by bidding counselling or witnessing or by any ensaumbling of per- soon . . . that men schulde mak and vse clockis forto knowe the houris of the dai and nygt, for thow in Scrip- ture mensionn is maad of orologis schewing the houris of the dai by schadow maad by the sunne in a circle ; certes nevere saue in late dales was any clok tellyng the houris of the dai and nvghte by peise and by stroke," etc., etc.
I suppose there were old fogies in that century as ever since, who declared that the clocks were a nuisance, that they were kept awake by the striking ; and that the Evil One must have had his hand in them ; that they were an unnecessary expense, being naturally, in the beginning, a constant outlay for re-
60 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
pairs ; that they would encourage the young folks sitting up late, would waste candles and fire, that the good old ways and the good old sun-dials and noon- marks were good enough for them, and ought to be for their children. Clock or Automobile ! it doesn't matter much which ; it is only a difference in dates and as regarded in comparison with other things.