Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1906-09-26
THE sUNDiAC


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tuAe In WAAcA - Stand~
In an old shop In lower New York a
man keeps up his trade OF dial making.
The dinls, square, ~octagonal OF circu-
iar, are hand chased. They do not re-
ceive a high polish, nod any acciden-
tai effect Of weather stain OF other
tone Of time Is carefully preserved
If not s~killfully added. These .dials.
fitted with the gnomon. OF styfua, are
then a~rtfully slipped into b show
windows Of uptown curiosity shops
among a selected debris OF Sheffield
plate, prism candlesticks, inlaid tea
oaddies and old blue plates
A visitor to n of these shops asked:
How old Is that brass dial over there?
it's all hand work. isn't itr'
"It's all hand work" said the proprie-
tor, whom we will call Truthful James.
81 can testify to that, for l know the
man whose hands made 1t. It's about
a month old, If you want to know.
You're like lots of other people-you
want an old Scotch or English dial.
Don't you know 1t would be useless, II
you found 1t, for practical purposes?
Excuse me- but haven't you ever stud
led geography and heard of latltudeP
A dial ought to be marked out scien-
tifcally for the exact latitude In which
1t is to be set up. So unless you strike
the same parallel In the states that the
dial left In England 1t will tell lies
from morning till night. You'd be sur
prised how many people pick up a dial
that strikes their fancy which perhaps
stood in the garden of an old Virginia
estate, intending to hurry 1t off to the
big grounds of some place In Minneso-
ia; or they'll snatch at some quaint
dial from New England, with the Idea
of rigging 1t up In Texas.
"More people would make the same
blunder. except that many haven't
caught on to dials. Too bad. Nothing
is p~rettier than a simple dial at the
crossways of garden paths. or by a
fountain or on a terrace or at the en-
trance of a pergola or nenr a rustic
seat or arbor. You don't have to hire
q head gardener and two assistants to
keep a sundial. Marble platforms and
pedestals are very grand, bat unless
you're running a big italian garden
with clipped hedges and yews and
statues something simple Is what you
want. The dial will keep just as good
time, once it's engraved right, If it's
mounted on n tree stump, with Ivy
planted round 1t, or on a bOwider. or on
the coping of an old disused we'll, or on
a column Of cobbles mortared together,
or on top of the old hltching post that
the family doesn't use In these auto
mobile days, but doesn't want to root
up and throw away.
you'd be surprised at the ingenuity
Of some people," said Truthful james.
who himself seemed Of ingenious bent.
81 mean people who haven't much
money to spend and are fond of their
own old stuff for associations sake.
They're the ones who get effects with
q piece Of junk, a lump of sentiment
and a pocket Of small change that can't
be bought with a blank check. I've
known people who used an old mill
stone to set the dial on, or who laid a
slab over an old stone garden urn, or
who saved the capitals from pillars on
q house being torn down, or who even
rugged up a standard from the bricks
Of a chimney on IN old homestead that
had meant a lot to them. One family
made a sort OF cairn out Of u geology
collection some ancestor had formed.
Another took a flag pole for the gnomon
and laid out a dial with pebbles In the
grass around the pole.
mo, 1t doesn't require any skill to set
up the dial. Get the noon mark for the
gnomon on several days. nick 1t on the
slab and then set the dial IN a bed Of
cement. There you are."-New York
Post.