Peter Abrahams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > The German text omits some instructions found in my two modern sources. > They say to use your left hand pointed west in the morning, and right hand > ponted east in the afternoon (Northern hemisphere). > Of course, the numbering system is reversed. > The stick should make an angle with your palm equal to your latitude. Your > palm must be horizontal. > Re. classification of the dial, is it not just a horizontal dial?
I had been interpreting "turn your back to the sun" to mean face North, and your source suggests facing due East or West, but I'm starting to think the instructions are meant exactly: "turn your back to the sun where ever it happens to be at the moment". Of course, this will never work with a horizontal dial, but in the illustration the palm seems to be vertical. If the fingers point directly away from the sun, the palm is vertical, and the stick is horizontal and perpendicular to the palm, then this is a measurement of the altitude of the sun. The numeration from 5 AM at the level of the stick, down to 12 noon and back up to 7 PM would fit with this interpretation (in the summer). This method has the advantage that you can use it on the road, when you don't know the directions exactly. The text seems unambiguous, but I don't see any way to get a useable shadow when facing the sun (in winter). If the fingers are tilted upward, then you could sight at the sun over the stick and along the fingers, but then the numbering would have to be different, and what's the point? I could imagine that the author/artist didn't fully understand the method himself and got it muddled. Art Carlson
