Things to be remembered in daily life : with personal experiences and recollections / by John Timbs.
- John Timbs
- Date:
- 1863
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Things to be remembered in daily life : with personal experiences and recollections / by John Timbs. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![arc. The N. point of the compass-box is Jixed in a position to allow for variation, probably at Paris; and, judging from this, it would appear to have been made about 1716 * We should also notice the pocket ring-dial, such as that which gave occasion to the Fool in the Forest of Arden to moral on the time : And then lie drew a dial from his poke, And, looking on it with la.ck-lustre eye. Says, very wisely, ''It is ten o'clock. This is a ring of brass, much like a miniature dog-collar, and has, moving in a groove in its circumference, a narrower ring with a boss, pierced by a small hole to admit a ray of light. The latter ring is made movable, to allow for the varying declination of the sun in the several months of the year, and the initials of these are marked in the ascending and descending scale on the larger ring, which bears also the motto: Set me right, and use me well, And i ye time to you will teU. The hours are lined and numbered on the opposite con- cavity. When the boss of the sliding ring is set, and the ring is suspended by the ring directly towards the sun, a ray of light passing through the hole in the boss impinges on the concave surface, and the hour is told with fair accu- racy. Mr. Thomas Q. Couch, of Bodmin, thus describes this Dial in Notes and Queries, 8d series. No. 36. Mr. Charles Knight, in his Pictorial ShaJcs]jeare, has engraved a dial of this kind, as an illustration of As you like it, Mr, Redmond, of Liverpool, describes the old pocket ring-dial as common in the county of Wexford some twenty- five years ago : there was hardly a farm-house where one could not be had. The same Correspondent of Notes and Queries, 3d series. No. 39, describes a door-sill marked with the hour for every day in the year: the sill had a full southern aspect, so that when the sun shone, the time could be read as correctly as by any watch. Another Correspondent of Notes and Queries, 2d series, No. 38, has an ingenious pocket-dial, sold by one T. Clarke : it is merely a card, with a small plummet hanging by a thread, and a gnomon, which lies flat on the card, but, when * N. T. HeinekeD; Notes and Queries, 3d series.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21081244_0035.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
