OLD TIME-PIECES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1342, 15 September 1886, Page 3

OLD TIME-PIECES.

The story is that King Alfred had no better way to tell the lime than by burning tvelve can lies, each of which lasted two hours ; and, when all the twelve were gone, another day had passed. Long before the time of Alfred the shadow of the sun told the hour of the day by means of a sun-dial, Ike old Chaldeans so placed a hollow hemisphere, with a bead in the centre, that the shadow of the bead on the inner surface told the hour of the day Other kinds of dials were afterward made with a tablet of wood or straight piece of metal. On the tablets were marked the different hours. When the shadow came to the mark IX., it was nine o’clock in the morning. The dial was sometimes placed near the ground, or in towers or buildings. There are two aim dials on the Gray and Black Nunnery in Ottawa, the capital of Canada. The old clock on the eastern end of Faneuil Hall in Boston was formerly a dial of this kind ; and on some old church towers in England you may see them today. In the days when dials were used, each one contained a motto of some kind, like these ; Time flies like the shadow or “ I tell no hours but those that are happy.” —Popular Science.