Customer Reviews

Sundials: An Illustrated History of Portable Dials

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I love this book: it has lots of beautiful photos of historic portable sundials, as well as explanations of how they work. It's a subject I've been interested in for decades, and I was delighted to find a whole book on the subject.

My only quibble is in the description of the universal equatorial ring dial. The author says that it is not an altitude dial, and avoids some of the problems associated with them, such as the difficulty of finding time near noon, and the problem of determining the time if you don't know whether it is morning or afternoon. I have used this type of dial for many years (my husband made me one out of brass: if you google "Karen's sundial page" you'll see it.) The universal equatorial ring dial is very much an altitude dial. That's what allows you to line it up without knowing which way north is, and makes it a compass as well as a sundial. It is very difficult to align exactly right around noon. And there is the problem of not knowing whether it is morning or afternoon. The dial will line up for two different times, and only one of them will be correct.

Other than that, this book is great.

I REALLY ENJOY READDING THOS BOOK, IT EXPLAIN VERY EASY END COMPREHENSIVE WAY THE SUNDIAL HISTORY SINCE EGYPT TO 1900, Y REALLY RECOMEND THIS BOOK.