Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 January 1911 — Romance of a Shadow. [ARTICLE]

Romance of a Shadow.

It Is hard to believe that a shadow la probably tbe origin of all astronomical, geometrical and geographical science. The first man who fixed his staff perpendicularly in the ground and measured Its shadow was the earliest computer of time, and the Arab of today who plants bis spear In the sand, and marks where the shadow fallß, Is his direct descendant It is from the shadow of a gnomon that the early Egyptians told the length of the year. It Is from the shadow of a gnomon that the Inhabitants of upper Egypt still measure the hours of work for s water wheel. In this case the gnomon is a lhurra stalk supported on forked uprights, and points north and south. East and west are pegs In the ground, evenly marking the space of earth between sunrise and sunset. In a land of constant sunshine a shadow was the primitive chronometer. It was alao the primitive foot rule. —London T. P.’s Weekly.