The latest BSS bulletin just arrived. The regular article about auctions shows a picture of a sundial apparently made for the southern hemisphere. It seems to be a brass plate with a gnomon sticking up at about 45 degrees and hour numerals increasing anticlockwise.
I noticed that the gnomon had certainly been fitted the wrong way round. The style should meet the dial on the 6am/6pm line. It clearly did not. But with the gnomon the other way round, how can we be sure the dial is for the southern hemisphere? Might it not be a vertical, northern hemisphere dial rather than a horizontal, southern hemisphere one? There seem to be inscriptions, which may well clarify the issue but are illegible in the Bulletin. I cannot be sure which way up they are to be read, but they seem consistent with this being a vertical dial. I wonder how a southern hemisphere dial could end up in an auction in England. It seems unlikely. Chris Lusby Taylor 51.4N 1.3W
