Deguello

BN0204 and BN0202 are on opposite ends of the same bridge (see pics). I found BN0204 late on a Friday afternoon. The bridge is narrow, old, and has no shoulder. The heavy and very close traffic scared me enough that I wouldn't look for BN0202 at that time. Went back at dawn on Sunday to look for BN0202. Traffic was only about one vehicle every 5 minutes. Easy find. As they say, "timing is everything" - Deguello

The coordinates you found on the dial clearly show that the it was intended for use on the OSU campus. I believe you're correct in thinking that part of Ohio was not observing central standard time in 1905. Reading one of the web sites that you mentioned yesterday shows that some cities at first refused to recognize the time zone in which they were placed. Columbus? Might be interesting to ask the reference desk at a local library to research the begining of Eastern time for Columbus. Good luck - deguello

From your photos, it looks like there is a set of coordinates marked on the sundial. Are you able to read them? Reason being, the dial may have been designed for another location then purchase by the class of '05 and moved to where it is now. That's not unusual with sundials, especially one this handsome. If you can read the coordinates on the dial we can determine exactly where it was intended to be used. This type of dial is called an analemic dial because the lop-sided figuure 8s on its face are analemas. It takes some pretty heavy-duty math to design one and great craftmanship to build it accurately. It appears that this one has been vandalized or broken because the gnomon is gone. The gnomon is the little thingee that actually casts the shadow. When this type dial is accurately designed and built it can tell the month of the year, and sometimes the day of the month, as well as the time of day. In 1905 standard time zones were still a fairly new thing in the U.S. The railroads initially pushed the concept through congress in order to unravel their nightmare of a scheduling problem. Before standard time zones, each city ran on local time so, cities just a few miles apart ran on different times. It could be that part of Ohio was in the central zone. Columbus is west of the W82.5 meridian and could therefor have been on central time. Let us know what you find out. - Deguello

When roadway maintenance crews are mowing along the roadside, it's difficult to a benchmark that's shorter than the grass that surrounds it. The colored markers alert the mower to the fact that an obstacle is there. I suspect the mowers are more concerned about hurting their equipment than they are about damaging a bench mark. - Deguello