Meridian Lines
A horizontal line aligned on a meridian with a gnomon facing the noon-sun is termed a meridian line and does not indicate the time, but instead the day of the year. Historically they were used to accurately determine the length of the solar year. Examples are the Bianchini meridian line in Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri in Rome, and the Cassini line in San Petronio Basilica at Bologna.
Read more about this topic: Sundial
Famous quotes containing the words meridian and/or lines:
“to these
Hale dead and deathless do the women of the hill
Love for ever meridian through the courters’ trees
And the daughters of darkness flame like Fawkes fires still.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“Was seiz’d by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot,
The rim, the sediment that stands for all the water and all the land
of the globe.
Fascinated, my eyes reverting from the south, dropt, to follow those slender windrows,
Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten,
Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)