Choose a spot of ground that is perfectly flat, where the sun shines all day long. Set up, or get your father or big brother to set up for you, a post four or five inches thick. Make it stand perfectly firm and straight. Now find a thin, flat piece of board--a box top or a shingle will do--and nail it like a table top on to the top of the post. After these preparations have been made, you must wait for a clear, starry night when you can go out and find the North Star. The way to do this is by looking at the "Big Dipper", the group of stars that of course you know.
The two stars marked A and B are called the "Pointers"; and, looking in the direction of the arrow, the next star in line with them is the North Star. Take a straight, thin stick, and fasten it to the center of the top of the post, slanting it so that it will point directly at the North Star. That is all you can do until the next day.
At twelve o'clock, if the sun is bright, you will find your slanting stick casting a shadow on the piece of board. Mark the line where it falls, and put the figure 12 upon it, to show that this line belongs to twelve o'clock. Do the same thing at one, two, and three o'clock, and so on through the afternoon. In the same way, the next day, you can mark the morning hours.
If you like, you can print on your sun-dial the motto that is often used for them: "Non horas sed serenas", which means "I mark none but sunny hours".
1. What did our ancestors use instead of a clock?
3. Can you draw a diagram of the sun-clock?
Arrange your paper with your name on the first line and your grade on the second line. Divide the rest of your paper into four parts with lines drawn as shown below:
TRAVELING | BANKING | GRAZING | SEASHORE | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Below is a list of words that is not very well arranged. Some words suggest a long railroad journey, some an errand to the bank, some the lonely occupation of a cowboy, and others a vacation at the shore. Write the words, TRAVELING, BANKING, GRAZING, SEASHORE at the top of your paper on the fourth line as shown above. Now rearrange the words below into four columns under these four heads, putting all the words that seem to suggest TRAVELING in the first column, and all the words that suggest BANKING in the second column, and every word that suggests GRAZING or SEASHORE in its proper column. When you finish wait quietly for the others.