234 NATURAL HISTORY OP SELBORNE. 



LETTER XLIV. 



TO THE SAME. 



" Momtrent 



uid tantum Oceano properent se tingere soles 

 yberni ; vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet. " 



SEABORNE. 



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 setting, 



