Sun-dials 357 



Portable dials were used instead of watches. There 

 is at the Washington headquarters at Morristown a 

 delicately wrought oval silver case, with compass and 

 sun-dial, which was carried by one of the French 

 officers who came here with Lafayette ; George 

 Washington owned and carried one. 



The colonists came here from a land set with dials, 

 whether they sailed from Holland or England. 

 Charles I had a vast fancy for dials, and had them 

 placed everywhere ; the finest and most curious was 

 the splendid master dial placed in his private gardens 

 at Whitehall ; this had five dials set in the upper 

 part, four in the four corners, and a great horizontal 

 concave dial ; among these were scattered equinoctial 

 dials, vertical dials, declining dials, polar dials, plane 

 dials, cylindrical dials, triangular dials; each was 

 inscribed with explanatory verses in Latin. Equally 

 beautiful and intricate were the dials of Charles II, 

 the most marvellous being the vast pyramid dial 

 bearing 271 different dial faces. 



Those who wish to learn of English sun-dials 

 should read Mrs. Gatty's Book of Sun-dials, a mas- 

 sive and fascinating volume. No such extended 

 record could be made of American sun-dials ; but 

 it pleases me that I know of over two hundred sun- 

 dials in America, chiefly old ones ; that I have pho- 

 tographs of many of them ; that I have copies of 

 many hundred dial mottoes, and also a very fair col- 

 lection of the old dial faces, of various metals and 

 sizes. 



I know of no public collection of sun-dials in 

 America save that in the Smithsonian Institution, 



