Sundials

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The sundial, the oldest method of ascertaining the solar time, is always an ornament, as well as useful in a garden or on a lawn, and we are often asked by correspondents how one can be made. It is simply a circular plate having a piece rising from it, as seen in the accompanying illustration, and the hours marked on the dial. A mirror should also be inserted, to reflect and show the direction of the clouds. The Bun, in passing from east to west, or rather, as we pass it lj\" in the opposite direction, casts 1,,. , a varying shadow of the trian-'{ . gular piece upon the dial, and as this change is regular, the | shadow can be made to mark the hours. To make one is slightly troublesome to one not accustomed to the graduation of {; circles and surfaces, and there- fore we are glad to inform those .'! of our readers who want one for j;'j the coming summer, that we '';' have discovered an excellent f* ,i ' .* manufacturer—W. W. Wilson, hi,'."- " ' ofPittsburg, Pa.—who for $15 '-' furnishes one with a copper dial plated with silver, a mirror for the reflection of passing clouds, and on a cast iron Doric column painted like stone. The engraving is taken from one of these, and, as will be seen, it forms at once a classic and useful ornament.

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