Barbara Ellmerer

Judith Albert

At noon your shadow
is a slow falling object
coinciding exactly
with my thirst for ink.
In the web of your fingers
a miniature giraffe
nestles, abhorrent
in its fraudulent cuteness.
Lap dog, lap giraffe,
how many degrees of deviance
will make me prove my love?

Sampurna Chattarji

The rising and setting of the sun or the moon or stars is observed with a rule, which has two sights (figure above). This rule is connected with a compass rose and needle (figure below). William Gilbert, De Magnete (London: Petrus Short, 1600), Zentralbibliothek Zürich, Alte Drucke und Rara, XVI.28, p. 173.

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Variation compass, instrument for measuring magnetic deviation*; the instrument relates observations of the sun to observations of the magnetic needle. The instrument shows the variation by the shadow of the sun. The shadow is observed before and after noon and correlated with the direction of the needle. The observations are marked with chalk or ink on the plate (circles). Afterwards they are compared to each other to study the deviation. William Gilbert, De Magnete (London: Petrus Short, 1600), Zentralbibliothek Zürich, Alte Drucke und Rara, XVI.28, p. 171.
* Deviation: The direction of a compass needle is deviating from the north-south-direction at different places of the globe. Sebastain Cabot first discovered and reported this fact, except for Columbus who didn’t report it officially. Deviation is also named “variation”.

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Barbara Ellmerer

Barbara Ellmerer