The Revival of the Sun-Dial 
THE OLD DIAL AT VAN CORTLANDT 
MANOR, N. Y. 
read excellent ones in the Encyclopaedia Britannica; you 
can find more ancient ones in Ferguson’s book on 
dialling, in Leadbetter, and better still, in Leybourne’s 
“ Dialling.” But the last named book is rare in America. 
I have never found a copy in any public or private 
library, nor seen one but my own; so his rules are practi¬ 
cally useless. For the dial-seeker the rules in the Ency¬ 
clopaedia seem to me perfectly clear in expression, but a 
capable mathematician stigmatized them to me as “blind 
and contused. ” 1 cannot give high enough praise to 
the rules in Mrs. Gatty’s “Book of Sun-dials”; and 
lastly I give in my own book on the subject the simple, 
lucid directions for making a horizontal dial which were 
w'ritten by the late H. R. Mitchell, Esq., of Philadelphia. 
In these he advises the assistance of an accurate watch 
in marking the hour-lines; and indeed the Encyclopaedia 
Britannica advises the same thing. Having drawn the 
dial-face you can doubtless secure its reproduction in 
metal or wood, it you will search and inquire carefully 
among mathematical professors and such manufacturers 
of nautical instruments as Queen & Co. of Philadelphia, 
or F. Barker & Co. of London, and many others. 
One who may be considered a successor of Captain 
Bailey and w ho has the right spirit and love of sun-dials 
is Mr. Joseph T. Higgins of Milford, Massachusetts. 
He can calculate accurately and make the drawings for 
any given latitude or position ; he can make the wooden 
pattern and have it cast in iron, brass or bronze; he can 
the profound dignity ot a historic 
past. Since the fourth day ot the 
creation, when there were lights 
and motions in the firmament ot 
heaven, there were of course mov¬ 
ing shadows, and therefore sun¬ 
dials. It has the special magic 
and fascination common to all in¬ 
struments which mark the passing of time. No one 
felt the charm and sentiment more fully than Charles 
Lamb; no one else worded it so poetically. I cannot 
imagine Lamb’s sun-dial standing upon a highly orna¬ 
mented and carved pedestal. 
The making ot sun-dials for a time seemed almost 
obsolete in America. The rare dial-seeker wishing one 
for a park, or for the wall of a church, was always put in 
correspondence with a London dealer, who could furnish 
him a costly dial-face. The brass ring-dials which under 
the name of poke-dials or pocket-dials were so universally 
carried before the era of watches, were made by folk of 
very slight mathematical skill. There seemed then to 
be a natural facility for accurate dial-making, which as 
years passed on seemed wholly lost from the brains and 
fingers of men in America, save in one instance, that ot 
fohn S. Bailey, a Quaker soldier ot our Civil War, who 
continued through the years of the sun-dial’s desuetude 
to make—and sell, when he could—sun-dials of metal 
and wood. He had been a clock seller and repairer, 
and drifted into dial-making through an interest in the 
life of Ferguson, the Scotch astronomer and dialler. 
Of course there are ample and accurate rules for the 
calculations of dial-faces to be found readily. \ou may 
A BRASS DIAL ON A WOOD 
STANDARD COVERED WITH LEAD 
