Foreword<br >Ever since early man learned to judge the time of day from the<br >length and direction of shadows， the Sun has been our primary<br >standard of time-keeping. The sundial， first used some thousands<br >of years ago， was still in use until well into the eighteenth cen-<br >tury， when the first really accurate clocks were made. Before<br >this time the sundial was all-important. When the melancholy<br >Jacques met a fool in the forest<br > ~ . . he drew a dial from his poke，1<br > And looking on it with lack-lustre eye，<br > Says， very wisely， It is ten o clock:<br >Such portable sundials must have been very common in those<br >days， when travel of any kind was a hazardous enterprise and<br >watches were rare and quite unreliable. Everv church clock would<br >have a sundial close at hand， so that the clock could be fre-<br >quently corrected. Many of these dials have， alas， passed away，<br >but it is always delightful to come across some rare example，<br >made with skill and artistry by men who took pride in their work.<br >In these days of mass production we can but admire the crafts-<br >manship shown in some intricate medieval dial or in the simple<br >beauty of the great sundial designed bv Henrv Moore in our own<br >times.<br > Mr Cousins has provided descriptions and illustrations of manv<br >kinds of sundial， and it has been a very real pleasure to read his<br >thorough study of the subject. He has obviouslv gone to great<br >lengths to describe the development of the sundial and the various<br >methods of construction， and I know of no other book that covers<br >the subject in such detail， and with so manv examples of the<br >kinds of dial which are still left to us.<br > There is some peculiar fascination about the sundial - our<br >oldest astronomical instrument - which will never fade. There is<br >also a beauty in the mathematics of its construction， and， indeed，<br >the art of dialling formed an important branch of mathematics<br >in the past， and was the subject of manv textbooks. It is this<br >aspect of the subject that appeals to me most of all， and its<br > 1 (.4s you like lt. Act ii Scene 7， line 20.)<br ><br >