The sun will have set about an hour, and Mercury will be easily found when the telescope is directed towards the place indicated.
It will be noticed that this method does not require the time to be exactly known.

All we have to do is to note the moment at which the sun passes the point of fastening of the two rods, and to take our 1h.

42m.
from that moment.
This method, it may be noticed in passing, may be applied to give naked-eye observations of Mercury at proper seasons (given in the almanac).

By a little ingenuity it may be applied as well to morning as to evening observations, the sun's passage of the cross-rod being taken on one morning and Mercury's on the next, so many minutes _before_ the hour of the first observation.

In this way several views of Mercury may be obtained during the year.
Such methods may appear very insignificant to the systematic observer with the equatorial, but that they are effective I can assert from my own experience.