Welsh Journals

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SUNDIALS. SINCE writing the foregoing Enquiry" in June last, thanks to the courtesy of the librarians of Counties Libraries" and the Birmingham City Library, who lent me books, I have acquired further knowledge of Sundials. I have also been in touch with the National Museum of Wales. Dr. Iowerth Peate (keeper of the Department of Folk Culture and Industries) wrote that he would be delighted if I would produce a work on Welsh Sundials. It was a very courteous letter but I do not know how he got the impression that I was prepared to do so. Perhaps I mentioned my Enquiry." I do not feel competent to do this; moreover I am engaged in writing something else, and I am old-" vita brevis." However, Dr. Peate, wrote in addition, that such a book leas sorely needed," Those who read his book Clock and Watchmakers in Wales will have noticed (p. 75) that the museum has seven examples or Welsh Sundials. Apart from the idea of adding to the beauty and interest of our villages by setting up old and new Sundials, a writer says it seems a pity that so little interest has been taken on this subject for it forms undoubtedly a very interesting corner in ecclesiology, and also there are still many points in the fabric of our Churches which small and unimportant as they may seem at first sight deserve careful invest- igation on systematic lines. Not so very long ago a lady wrote a letter to an important London daily paper in which she deplored the fact that no one ever devised a new hobby. Here is a useful one-some interest in this subject may have been revived by a recent "leader" in The Times on Sundials, brought about by the fact that at the present time the Germans were again making portable Sundials for lack of watches. Apropos of "portable" Sundials there is an amusing picture by Rowlandson. It depicts a very gouty gentleman sitting in his armchair.