Greetings Edley, Gianni and fellow dialists,
In 1816 Robert Stephenson, aged thirteen, did the calculations for the dial still standing on the Stephenson cottage in Killingworth, Northumberland. Ferguson's "Astronomy" obviously existed at that date. Robert's own account reads: "We got a Ferguson's "Astronomy" and studied the subject together. Many a sore head I had while making the necessary calculations to adapt the dial to the latitude of Killingworth. But at length it was fairly drawn out on paper, and then my father got a stone, and he hewed and carved, and polished it, until we made a very respectable dial of it." You will recall that George Stephenson was the famous railway engineer and his son, Robert, followed him. Frank 55N 1W Edley McKnight wrote: >Dear Gianni, > >Thanks very much for the hint regarding dialing resources on "Google >Books"! > >Quite a few of the full view, downloadable, books in pdf format have at least >chapters on dialing. In the mid 1800's it appears that many colleges and >universities included dialing as a subject within their mathematics >curriculum. >There are mathematics books by a Ferguson, for instance, that include >dialing from around the 1850's. Could this be the Ferguson that some of you >have been searching for? > >The idea of making a dial point whatever which way in order to either include >a fixed set of hours, or to be fully visible from a particular location ( Like >the >bell ringer or the administration offices. ) sounds really cool! > >Thanks again, > >Edley McKnight > > > -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.467 / Virus Database: 269.6.5/792 - Release Date: 06/05/2007 21:01 --------------------------------------------------- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
