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, 
