• Title
  Universal sundial, circa 1728-1748
• Creator
  Thomas Wright, 1686-1767
• Call number
  SAFE/R 212
  Status: On display - Map Rooms
  
• Level of description
  fonds
• Date
  
  circa 1728-1748
• Type of material
  Graphic Materials, Objects
• Reference code
  457932
• Issue Copy
  Digitised
• Physical Description
  1 sundial - brass, housed in original wooden box. The bowl below the dial has a compass with a detached needle. The rim of the compass is engraved with a calendar. - 0.056 x 0.056 cm, height closed 0.04 cm ; height opened 0.16 cm ; wooden box 0.075 x 0.075 x 0.05 cm
  
• General note
  
  The sundial was designed to tell the time by the sun at any latitude, being set by a compass and radial bar calibrated in degrees. This sundial has the initials J.C. incorporated into the design within the brass circle and was supposedly designed by Cook himself. However, this is unlikely as Cook was only twenty years old and learning the business on a North Sea collier when Thomas Wright (instrument maker) retired in 1748. It also seems unlikely that Cook commissioned a special dial from an expensive London maker at this time in his career. This type of dial was invented for domestic land use and was not suitable for use at sea. It is possible that such an instrument may have been used on shore during the first voyage, when no chronometer was available.
  
  Sources: The Mathematical practitioners of Hanoverian England 1714-1840 by E.G.R. Taylor, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1966. Description of navigation charting and surveying instruments in the Mitchell Library relics collection by Vaughan Evans. PXn 783.
  Digital order no:Album ID : 1004864
• Signatures / Inscriptions
  
  Engraved on face 'Made by Tho Wright Instrumt maker to His Majesty'.
• Subject
  Cook, James, 1728-1779.
  
• Topic
  clocks
  sundials
  
• Exhibited in
  
  Possessed : an exhibition of treasures - State Library of New South Wales (4 March - 29 June, 1997)
  Dare to know : the art and science of Pacific voyages - State Library of New South Wales (June, 1998 - November, 1998)
• Open Rosetta viewer
  IE3251729

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