eye-trap might also contribute to promote science : 

 an obelisk in a garden or park might be both an em- 

 bellishment and a heliotrope. 



Any person that is curious, and enjoys the advan, 

 tage of a good horizon, might, with little trouble- 

 make two heliotropes ; the one for the winter, the 

 other for the summer solstice : and these two erec- 

 tions might be constructed with very little expense ; 

 for two pieces of timber framework, about ten or 

 twelve feet high, and four feet broad at the base, 

 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 even- 

 ing, 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 ; 

 the whole disc of the sun clearing the summer helio- 

 trope to the north of it at the longest day. 



By this simple expedient it w^ould soon appear 

 that there is no such thing, strictly speaking, as a sol- 

 stice ; for, from the shortest day, the owner would, 



ii6 



