Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1884-01-02

tram has run away from the sun by
an hours journey. If the train start
from San Francisco, and move east
ward twenty-four hours at the same
rate, it will he one o'clock where the
train is when it is noon at San Fran
cisco. The train has met the sun !;
and in the twenty-four hours it has
travelled as far as the sun goes in an
hour.
1t was said above that the sun
travels fifteen miles in one minute at
the latitude of New York, and that
each of the points fifteen miles apart
on an east and west line would vary
in time from the point next to it by
one minute. In practice, however,
the time of large city, where nice
instruments are kept for determining
the exact noon, was taken by the
neighboring towns. Boston time, for
example, was used in towns and cities
forty or fifty miles east or west of the
city; Hartford time prevailed in Con-
necticut; Springfield time in Western
Massachusetts,; New York time in the
eastern part of that State, and Buffalo
time, perhaps, in the western. There
was Washington time, Philadelphia
time, Cincinnati, Chicago, st. Louis,
and San Francisco time.
There were more than fifty different
standards of time by which important
railroads ran their trains. This was
confusing to travellers, and it made
great difficulty in the arrangement of
timetables for the running of the
trains. The difference in time be-
tween Boston and New York, for in
stance, was twelve minutes, and the
time required to go from one city to
the other is six hours. 1t would APP
pear to take five hours and forty-eight
minutes only in going from Boston to
New York, and six hours and twelve
minutes to return-an apparent diff
ference of twenty-four minutes, when
there was really none. But, worst of
all, these varying standards of time
we're dangerous, for when so many
trains are running, an error of one
minute might cause the loss of many
lives.
The new standard has beer - .
to remedy these evils. IT, .; LII,
is divided into ct 10 or time belts
60 o'v'u s ' ~ vide, extending north
~ nth, and every city or town
adopts the true time of the central
meridian of this belt for its standard
time, instead of taking the time of
the nearest large city, as before.
Five meridians of longitude fifteen
degrees apart are selected to give
time; the Goth, near Prince Edward
Island, the 10Th, near Philadelphia,
the Goth, near st. Louis, the 105th,
near Denver, Colorado, and the 120th,
near Carson City, Nevada. OF course
the time at the Goth, is four hours
earlier than London time. The time
of each of these meridians is adopted
in the territory seven and half de-
grees each eide Of tt1 meridian.
r..eSc divisions, fifteen degrees wide,
are called the Intercolonial, which ex-
tends westward to PASSPORT, Maine I;
the Eastern, from that point, to near
Detroit, Michigan the Central, from
that point, to Topeka, Kansas the
from that point to Salt
Lake; and the Pacific, from there to
The ocean. These time belts extend
from the meridian of 67!o to S240;
from this to 97!0; from this to 11240;
md from this TO the Pacific Ocean,
At II NJ. in the first, Intercolonial di-
vision, it will be II A. NJ. in the
Eastern, 10 A. NJ. in the Central, 8 A.
". in the Mountain, and 8 A. NJ. in
he Pacific. AT five minutes past IL
n the first it will be five minutes past
II, 10, 8, and 8 respectively in the
,ther divisions. The minutes and
econd agree in all. The time varies
~ one hour as you pass from one d.
,ision to the next.
Near the center Of each time belt
he standard time is about the same
is the true time. Toward the edges
# these belts it varies more and more,
Until the difference becomes half an
lour.
When it is a quarter past three at
1astport, it a quarter past four at st.
stephen, New Brunswick, just over
he river. There is the same differ
nee between the standard time of
Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, across
he river. The boundaries Of these
,elts will not always follow the meri-
Ian exactly; they will be arranged
o suit the convenience of those living
N the borders of the belt. North
Jarolina, for instance, is mostly in
he Eastern division, and so the small
art of the State situated in the Gen.
raj division will probably adopt
Eastern time A.; and Tennessee will
dopt Central time, though o small