Sundials [1]
Sundials
[2]Evidence of the use of sundials in North Carolina has been found as early as the colonial period [3]. In May 1772 it was noted that Christian Gottlieb Reuter [4] intended to build two "sun clocks" for the Moravian [5] community of Salem [6]. In 1811 John Stirewalt [7] of Rowan County [8] had a sundial constructed on the south wall of his brick house. In 1833 Henry Barnard of St. John's College, Md., was in Chapel Hill and commented on the sundial in Professor Elisha Mitchell [9]'s garden there. The carved sandstone pedestal of another one stands in the Presbyterian churchyard [10] in Fayetteville [11]. A large sundial, adjacent to the Morehead Planetarium [12] in Chapel Hill and very near the site of Mitchell's garden, was constructed in 1956 with a gnomon approximately 24 feet long and 20 feet high. The sundial has become an oft-visited landmark on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill [13] campus.
References:
Adelaide L. Fries, ed., Records of the Moravians [5] in North Carolina, vols. 2 (1925) and 5 (1941).
Rener J. Roher, Sundials: History, Theory, and Practice (1965).
Image Credit:
Sundial by Morehead Planetarium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Image courtesy of Flickr user Kristian20. Available from http://www.flickr.com/photos/kristian20/1590456642/ [2] (accessed July 18, 2012).
Additional Resources:
North American Sundial Society: http://sundials.org/ [14]
1 January 2006 | Powell, William S.
