Hi Sara! I thought it was great when you volunteered to cut the stone in my studio at the conference! Alas, I don't think anybody took your picture. I think when people saw you make a sucessful stone engraving on your first try it inspired some of them to try their hands at carving.
Hey a quick question I've been carrying around since you gave your wonderful talk on travelers of old who used portable sundials. All those beautiful antique pocket dials for travelers now cost thousands of dollars in auction. But back then, in the old days, how expensive were they? How many days would the average worker have to work to be able to buy one? Could only the rich afford them? p.s. Thanks for the historical background of mid-sized analemmatics. I just confirms to me how astounding it is that dialists haven't made more of them in three hundred years. John John L. Carmichael Jr. Sundial Sculptures 925 E. Foothills Dr. Tucson Arizona 85718 USA Tel: 520-696-1709 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Website: <http://www.sundialsculptures.com> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sara Schechner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 4:56 PM Subject: Re: A New "That's Cool" Analemmatic > At 01:52 PM 10/24/02 -0700, Dave Bell wrote: > >As I read your description, I also wondered why we haven't seen more small > >analemmatic dials. It (now) seems like a perfectly natural idea! When you > >mentioned having an attached, sliding gnomon, I had a vision of a > >mechanical means of placing one. I wouldn't think it would be the ideal > >plan for a stone dial like yours. On the other hand, it might be > >appropriate for a metal instrument, like one of Tony Moss's brass > >sculptures. > > For the record, table top and portable analemmatic sundials were made in > the 17th century. These all had gnomons that slid within a track so that > they would not get lost. On the pocket-sized versions, the gnomons folded > down for easier packing. I showed an example by Thomas Tuttell at the NASS > meeting. > > Sara > > Sara Schechner, Ph.D. > David P. Wheatland Curator > Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments > Harvard University, Science Center B-6 > 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge MA 02138 > 617-496-9542 (Tel) > 617-496-5932 (Fax) > > - > -
