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Why the Sun Dial keeps time

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Sundial Hour Lines Lay out

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Declination Lines of Sundials

Portable Sundials

Interesting Sundials of the World

INTERESTING SUNDIALS: Flowers and a Moon Sundial

FLOWER TIME
All garden lovers will be interested in the floral sundial in Cypress Lawn Memorial Park, San Francisco, California. It is made entirely of flowers as is the motto above it. Such sundials are rare in the United States, but they are not uncommon in England where clipped yew or box is used for the gnomon and the sundial plate laid out in a variety of schemes. A floral sundial makes an excellent feature in any public park or cemetery. Due to the character of materials it must be designed on a large scale and the position of the hour lines should be computed mathematically for use with a surveyor's transit. Care must also be used in the selection of plants. A sundial ably and beautifully executed, second to none. Mr. Noble Johnson of Cypress Lawn Memorial Park generously supplied the photograph together with the following description: "The sundial, itself, is fifty feet in diameter and is made entirely of growing plants. The gnomon is made from a Cypress tree and it is entirely covered with growing Ivy that is kept closely trimmed. The numerals are planted with Santalina, a gray close growing plant. The field and borders are planted with fibrous begonias (Luminosa cornpacta), Acaranthus, Iresine and yellow Pyrethrum (Carpet of Gold)."

A MOON SUNDIAL
Many a traveler has stopped to look at the famous moon sundial at Queen's College, England, painted on the masonry wall. The three rows of figures have often caused a great deal of speculation. They are however, the secret of the moon sundial, for without them no one could tell time by the light of the moon. President Venn very kindly sent us the accompanying illustration and the following description of the sundial: "The real object of the extension is to enable the sundial to play the part of a Moon-sundial as well as that of a Sundial, in a manner which we must explain. "If we could see traced out on the sky the path of the sun during a whole day, the moon would always be found in or close to that path; and the distance of the moon ahead of the sun would be simply proportional to the moon's age, a new moon being extremely near the sun (an eclipse of the sun can take place only when the moon is new, a fact of which not every writer of fiction seems to be aware), a full moon half a day's journey away, and the moon as it dies at the end of the lunar month overtaking the sun to commence again. We take the lunar month to consist of thirty days. Thus, for example, a five days-old moon has completed one sixth of its monthly course and is therefore one sixth of a day's journey ahead of the sun in the sky.

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