96 AMERICAN HOMES AND” GARDENS February, 1906 
estal of varying material, shape and pretension surmounted 
by a sun-dial of interesting character, but this has now be- 
come so rare that many people have never seen it. In the 
New England States, particularly in the vicinity of Boston, 
in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, there are still 
many of the old-time sun-dials to be found which are in com- 
paratively good state of preservation, and still linger in use 
in the front of court houses, churches and in many old gar- 
dens. Most of these, however, are of English make. There 
is an old dial in the yard of Grace Church, in Broadway, 
and another on the Dutch Reform Church, in West End 
Avenue, both in the city of New York. There is an old 
dial on the campus of Yale University which has been fre- 
quently stolen, and upon one of these periodical vacations, 
which the dial so frequently took, one of the professors, de- 
termined to learn who did the mischief, interrogated his 
class; one member, when being questioned, replied, “No, 
sir, I do not know, but I conclude it must be procrastination, 
as it is said to be the thief of Time.”’ There are two sun- 
dials at Princeton University, one carved in stone on the wall 
of the library and another on the front of the Pyne dorm- 
itory building; since Princeton places her dials on her walls 
she may have taken the advisable suggestion from Yale’s 
experience. Some of the old dial faces were made of pewter, 
and one of these still remains over the gateway of Mount 
Auburn Cemetery, in Boston, Mass. 
The most primitive mode of knowing the midday hour 
was by a ‘“‘noon mark,” a groove cut or a line drawn on door 
4—“An Uaisdal Tem plelikes Seuine fore Susi or window sill, which indicated the meridian hour by a 
shadow thrown on this noon mark. A step in advance was 
made when a simple metal sun-dial was affixed to the window 
gable of some old house, church or public building, it is sill, instead of cutting the rude noon mark. After that the 
invariably picturesque. dial was set on a pedestal near the kitchen window, as I 
From the twelfth to the sixteenth century the history of have seen it, so that all the housewife had to do was to glance 
dialing is a blank, and it was not till the Renascence that it through the window to learn the time of day. 
again took its place among the many thinkers of the period. Sun-dials were used by George Washington. He had three 
Throughout all Europe, and particularly. in 
England, are to be found many fine old specimens 
of the sun-dial. ‘To those who know them there 
is a fascination about the time-worn dials of 
Europe, as well as those to be found on buildings 
and in the old gardens of America, moss covered eae ae ae 
and weather beaten, with their quaintly carved Ne Kes ae 
mottoes that strive to impress upon the passer-by 
the fleeting nature of time. ‘There is a certain 
poetry in the thought of the sun itself recording 
on the carved stone the passing hour that no clock 
with all its mechanism can ever have. ‘That 
poetry has perhaps been most aptly expressed by 
Charles Lamb, when he says: ‘“‘What a dead thing 
is a clock, with its ponderous embowelments of 
lead and brass, its pert and solemn dulness of 
communication, compared with the simple altar- 
like structure and silent heart language of the old 
dial! It stood as the garden god of Christian 
gardens. Why is it almost everywhere banished ? 
If its business uses be superseded by more elab- 
orate inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might 
have pleaded for its continuance. It spoke of 
moderate labors, of pleasures not protracted after 
sunset, of temperance and good hours. It was 
the primitive clock, the horologe of the first 
world. Adam could scarce have missed it in 
Paradise! The shepherd carved it out quaintly 
in the sun, and turning philosopher by the very 
occupation, provided it with mottoes more touch- 
ing than tombstones.” oo 
A century or more ago, in the gardens of the 5—The Position of this Sun-Dial Gives the Impression that it Stands as a 
American Colonies, there might be seen a ped- Sentinel to the Arched Entrance Way of the Garden 
