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Show The Shadow of Science. It is hard to believe that a shadow is probably the origin of all astronomical, astrono-mical, 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 his spear in the sand and marks where the shadow falls 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 Up-per Egypt still measure the hours of work for a water wheel. In this case the gnomon is a lhurra stalk supported support-ed 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 sun-shine a shadow was the primitive chronometer. It was also the primitive prim-itive foot rule. |