NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 241 



LETTER XLIV. 



' ' Monstrent 



#**## 



Quid tantum Oceano properent se tingere soles 

 Hyberni ; vel quse tardis mora noctibus obstet." 



SELBORNE. 



GENTLEMEN who have outlets might contrive to make ornament 

 subservient to utility : a pleasing eye-trap might also contribute to 

 promote science : an obelisk in a garden or park might be both 

 an embellishment and an heliotrope. 



Any person that is curious, and enjoys the advantage of a good 

 horizon, might, with little trouble, make two heliotropes ; the one 

 for the winter, the other for the summer solstice : and the two 

 erections might be constructed with very little expense ; for two 

 pieces of timber frame-work, about ten or twelve feet high, and 

 four feet broad at the base, and close lined with plank, would 

 answer the purpose. 



The erection for the former should, if possible, be placed within 

 sight of some window in the common sitting-parlour ; because 

 men, at that dead season of the year, are usually within doors at 

 the close of the day ; while that for the latter might be fixed for 

 any given spot in the garden or outlet ; whence the owner might 

 contemplate, in a fine summer's evening, the utmost extent that 

 the sun makes to the northward at the season of the longest days. 

 Now nothing would be necessary but to place these two objects 

 with so much exactness, that the westerly limb of the sun, at 

 setting, might but just clear the winter heliotrope to the west of it 

 on the shortest day ; and that the whole disc of the sun, at the 

 longest day, might exactly at setting also clear the summer 

 heliotrope to the north of it. 



By this simple expedient it would soon appear that there is no 

 such thing, strictly speaking, as a solstice ; for, from the shortest 

 day, the owner would, every clear evening, see the disc advancing 

 at its setting, to the westward of the object; and, from the longest 

 day, observe the sun retiring backwards every evening at its 



