lers' necessities, the favourite form being the ring dial, supplanted in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by the shepherd's or pillar dial. I have not found, however, in this country either of these portable sundials still in use by shepherds, but I have obtained both the forms, as shown in Figs, 1 and 3 (Plate I.), from the Pyrenees and Tyrol respectively, where they are still in use by shepherds.[1]
The sundial photographed in Fig. 1 is used near Luz and Gavarnie in the Pyrenees, where it is sold for from forty centimes to a franc in all the little village stores. It consists of a small cylinder of boxwood marked round the base with the initials of the months, and with curves round it leading to a vertical column of hour numbers. The removable top carries a small tin gnomon, which can be turned into line with the stem and sheathed in the cylinder of the sundial. For use, the gnomon is set above the vertical line indicated by the initial of the proper month. The shepherd stands with his back to the sun, and holds the appliance up by means of a string attached to the top knob. The shadow of the gnomon then falls on the cylinder, and on following up the line next below the end of the shadow the next hour can be read off. I used such a dial myself in the Pyrenees, and found it perfectly accurate. Of course a dial of this kind must be specially designed for the particular locality in which it is to be used. A dial of somewhat similar pattern, designed for London, is shown in Fig. 1 (Plate X.) in the supplement to James Ferguson's Lectures on Select Subjects, etc., 9th edition, 1799.
The other form of portable dial, photographed in Fig. 3 (Plate I.), was obtained in the Tyrol by Mr. H. C. Collyer. It consists of a small flat band of brass, bent into a ring of about 1½ inches diameter, over part of which slides a second brass piece with a small perforation which passes over a narrow slit in the inner ring. The outer piece is adjusted for the time of year by means of a graduated scale, and the ray of light, passing through the perforation and slit when the dial is held
- ↑ In the discussion which followed my paper, Mr. Hildburgh stated that portable dials were still in use in Sweden, of a type similar to that shown in Fig. 3.
