196 WHITE 



LETTER XLIV 



. . . "Monstrent 

 ***** 

 Quid tantum Oceano properent se tingere soles 

 Hyberni ; vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet." 



SELBORNE. 



GENTLEMEN who have outlets might contrive to make orna- 

 ments 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 parlor ; 

 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 sea- 

 son 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 setting, towards the object westward, till, in a 

 few nights, it would set quite behind it, and so by degrees, to 



