The Red Cloud chief., 1880-09-16
"GREENwICa TME.-

~ A1C CUC<AuuL ul8LC.
Burlington Hdpkeve.
"GREENWICH THE"
"HoxE-KBEprSG youth" rarely guess
when they go abroad to .'swim in a
gondola" and perform other feats of
similar kind, that one of their most
troublesome tasks will be found in the
daily endeavor TO keep time with the
sun. Yet nothing is more certain than
that days and hours have q knack of
getting into q hopeless muddle during a
rapid railway ride due east. On a steam
boat journey either to east or west there
Is less confusion, for the height of the
sun is taken OF every clear day. The
time problem put in q familiar way by
the old ballad writer has been set in q
more startling light by a modern French
novelist. The unknown author of liking
John and the Abbot Of Canterbury"
makes the shepherd who personates the
latter tell the capricious tyrant in an
ewer to the second OF his three ques-
tions. "How soone may / ride the whole
world about7"
"You must rise with the sun. n ride with
Until the next morning he riseth againe:
And then your Grace need not make any
But in twenty-four hours you'll ride it about"
How far the writer of this derry
down" ballad who evidently rewrote
IN earlier work, was acquainted with
the Copernican system is not ascer-
tanned, but for the purpose of his story
he adopts the convenient If accurate
theory that the sun moves and not the
earth, which rested, like many more
blunders, On the evidence of the senses.
The modern French novelist is scien-
tiically accurate In the scheme of his
story. In detail M. Jules Verne fire.
quently errs. as when he speaks of the
chronological Society as having been
founded "for the destruction of noxious
insects" but the fact on which his
story is founded is mathematically cor
rect. Phineas Fogg, when he made his
bet to 60 round the world in eighty
days had no idea that the relation be-
tween sun and earth would help him to
win what he at n moment thought a
lost wager. Carefully keeping count of
time he imagines that he must have lost;
that he arrived in London on Sunday
instead of Saturday; that his great bet is
forfeited, and that he is ruined. Send
ing for a clergyman to marry him, he
discovers that his bet is not lost, that it
is Saturday instead Of Sunday. How
this comes about is very easy of expla-
nation. Fogg, instead of "riding with
the sum-" that is from east to west, rode
for eighty days against it, and thus,
despite his carefully-kep. itinerary,
gained a day without knowing it. BY
going to the eastward he gained four
minutes for every degree Of longitude
he crossed, and as M. Jules Verne
naiyely explains. for the benefit of such
of~his countrymen as knew not geo.
graphy, there are three hundred and
sixty Of these degrees on the terrestrial
circumference, and these three hundred
and sixty degrees multiplied by four
minutes yield precisely twenty-four
bours-the day unconsciously gained.
In other words, while Phineas Fogg.
travelling eastward, saw the sun at the
meridian eighty times, his friends who
remained in London only saw it pass
seventy-nine times. This is why, on
the day which was Saturday and not
Sunday, as Fogg thought, these friends
were waiting for him at the Reform
Club. In short, the twenty-four hours
which would have been spent in riding
round the world with the sun, were
gained by riding round it in the oppo-
site direction in eighty days.
Few who have read M. Verne's de-
lightful book have forgotten either
Passepartout, Phineas Fogg's French
valet, the possessor of the great silver
family watch, or his rage when the de-
tective Fix tells him at Suez that the
highly-prized heirloom is o than
two hours slow. Fix explains that
Suez time is faster than London time,
and that Passepartout must set his
watch by the ruling meridian of each
country. 81 alter my watch" screams
the valet; "never." "Very well,
then, it win no longer agree with the
sum-" replies Fix. "Then so much the
worse for the sun. 1t will be he who
has gone wrong" The term "ruling
is used advisedly, for, as
the rapidity of communication in
creases, the fashion OF keeping one
railway time in each co:ntry is found
necessary. The difference
between the time of Ter e towns in a
small country like En- and is not so
startling as that between London and
il, from moo to midnight
but quite appreciable. nevertheless.
It is not possible to experience within
the limits of Great Britain the peculiar
sensation produced at New York by
hearing which horse has Won the Derby
before eleven o'clock in the morning Of
the eventful day, or of discussing and
bets over a Harvard and Oxford
boat rsce during luncheon by the Hud-
son-the race being set for five o'clock
in the afternoon on the Thames. Still
Il would be possible to telegraph q
speech to Edinburgh, before apparently
e was spoken in London, the differ
ence of longitude between Greenwich
and Edinburgh being three degrees
and eleven minutes--equivalent to
minutes and forty-four seconds
Of time. Greenwich is specially men,
IN this place because Of little
difficulty which arises in speaking of
.sLondon time" In London Green
wich time is kept, albeit true London
time il twenty seconds slower, the
great city lying westward of the ruling
All over the world, how
ever, London time Is synonymous with
time. the small difference
Just noted being of no practical inn
portance.
Edinburgh was Just cited - an in
stance Of the difference Of time prevail
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