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The ring dial is thus defined :— 
A kind of dial usually small and portable, consisting of a brass ring, 
seldom exceeding two inches in diameter and one third of an inch in 
breadth. 
In a point in this ring is a hole, through which the sunbeam being 
received, makes a lucid speck on the concave surface of the opposite 
semi-circle, on which the hour is marked and the divisions. 
To make the dial available for the whole year, the hole is made 
moveable, and the Signs of the Zodiac, or the days of the Beh are 
marked on the covvex side of the ring. 
To use it, put the moveable hole to the day of the month, or the 
degree of the Zodiac the sun is in, then suspending it by the little ring, 
turn it towards the sun till its rays point out the hour upon the 
divisions marked on the under surface of the ring.* 
The dial exhibited has the maker’s name, D. PROCTOR, 
above which are the letters W. H. 8S. The date of the dial is 
supposed to be A.D. 1760.T 
This ancient form of dial is referred to in Shakespere, and 
seems to have been carried about the person as watches are at 
‘present. 
Thus in “ As you like it ” (ii. 7.) 
Jaques describes the ‘‘ motley fool” in the forest— 
} “ Who laid him down and basked him in the sun.” 
“ And then he drew a dial from his poke, 
And looking on it with lack-lustre eye, 
Says very wisely, ‘ It is ten o’clock.’” 
* See Article on Ring Dials in Chambers’s Cyclopedia, vol. ii. 
+ The time of the invention of watches was about 1658. Robert 
_ Hooke is claimed as the inventor of the watch, but M. Huggens 
disputes this claim with him. A double balance watch was presented 
_ to Charles II., which has the inscription—“ Rob. Hooke, inven., 1658. 
Aid Tompion, fecit, 1675. 
See Chambers’s Cyclopedia. Sub. voce. 
