THE APPARENT MOVEMENTS OF THE SUN 6g 



before the experiment is begun, and record this height. Put 

 the bottle in position, and make a dot with a blue pencil at the 

 extremity of the shadow, and record the time of observation. 

 Let the children return to the window at intervals of, say, half 

 an hour to make a fresh dot each time, recording on the black- 

 board the hour of observation in each case. 



If the room is fully exposed to sunlight, a pretty and easy 

 way of carrying out the experiment is to place a drawing-board 

 on the floor, pin to it a large sheet of paper, and stick up a pin 

 in the middle. The head of the pin helps to give definiteness to 

 the end of the shadow, and measurements are also much easier 

 in this way than on a rough and uneven window-sill or playground. 

 If the room only receives the sunshine for a very short period, 

 then the drawing-board may quite well be placed in the open. 

 Again, especially when the room has an exposure such that it 

 receives relatively little sunshine, and that only at certain 

 times of the year, careful observations should be made of the 

 times of day and the date when it enters and disappears. A 

 little piece of stamp-edge, with the hour and date neatly written 

 upon it, may be easily gummed on the wall with its edge to the 

 edge of the shadow, the operation being repeated at longer or 

 shorter intervals. 



In the first instance, it would be a mistake to attempt to 

 deduce anything but the simplest and most elementary facts 

 from these shadow and sunshine observations. The shadow 

 experiment, carried on for a morning, shows us that the shadow 

 of a pin changes quickly, and that in the morning the shadow 

 grows shorter and shorter till midday comes. By repeating the 

 experiment in the afternoon, we find that the shadow grows longer 

 and longer after noon. We check this by observations made on 

 the shadows of houses and fences seen on the road. There is 

 indeed no difficulty in getting the class to mark the shadow of 

 some object in the playground as they enter at nine, again as they 

 leave at noon, and again twice in the afternoon, so as to confirm 

 their schoolroom observations. 



Similarly, by marking the place reached by the sunshine either 

 in the schoolroom or on the outer wall of the school, and doing 

 this at intervals for weeks or months, we soon learn that as the 



