The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1893-10-02
TODAY, YESTERDAY OR TOMORROW.


Iart OF tho IHcino ocean.
A question which has often been asked
but rarely answered satisfactorily is how
far one would have to go around the earth,
moving east or west and supposing no time
lost in transition, before one would reach
the point where today changes Into yester-
day or tomorrow. Evidently there must
be such point somewhere, for an hour is
lost every Is degrees one goes to the east
and an bour gained every 15 degrees one
goes to the west.
To put the question in another way; Sup
pose it is one minute past midnight in Paris
on the morning of Oct. /, what day is 1t
at that same moment at the antipodes of
Paris2 Isit the list of October or the 30th OF
September.
Apparently one can prove that it is either
of these days by making an instantaneous
journey half way around the earth either to
the east or to the west
Going east at the moment the Paris
clocks point TO minute past midnight
4 is approximately o'clock in the morn
ing of Oct. at Vienna, 9 O'Clock Of the
same day at Sebastapol, o'clock at
Astrakhan, o'clock at Bokhara, o'clock
atSagion, 0o'clock at Yokohama, II o'clock
at Pine island and noon at Fortune island
list of October at every point.
On the other hand, going westward one
finds that it is 10 o'clock in the evening of
Sept 80 at the Azore islands, 8 o'clock in
the evening at Buepos Ayres, 7 O'Clock at
New York, G o'clock at New Orleans, sis
at Mexico City, o'clock III the afternoon
near the Aleutian islands and noon at For
tune island-the date being Sept. 80 in each
case.
Thus one has demonstrated that it is
n I pf nt ln
samo place and at the snme time.
This would certainly be embarrassing to
the good people of Fortune island, and in
order to avoid such complications and re-
Heve well meaning islanders in the Pacific
from mixing up their Saturdays and Sun
days in hopeless fashion an arbitrary line
separating today from yesterday or tomor-
row has been agreed upon by the navigators
of civilized nations This line has been
drawn to avoid touching land. No one can
be exactly sure of the moment of passing it,
but the line runs just east Of the New Heb
rides and the New Caledonia groups and
passes near the Marion islands and the
Caroline islands. Captains of vessels, judR-
ing by the positions of the islands men
toned, can fix the date within a few min
utes.
Vessels sailing from west to east on pass
ing this imaginary line simply repeat the
day before on their logbooks, which con-
sequently show two days bearing the same
date. On the other hand, ships going in the
opposite direction from west to east skip
the tomorrow and lose day entirely In
the first case the sailors get an extra days
pay; IN the second case they lose days
pay
The conclusion of the whole matter is
that when the Paris clocks indicate min
ute past midnight on Oct. it is Oct 60
ing east as far as the imaginary line just In
dicated, while it is Sept. 80 going west up
to the same line. 1t would be possible the.
oretically, therefore, for man swimming
in those waters to have one of his legs in
Saturday and the other in Sunday at the
same moment.-Cleyeland Mofrett in Chi
cago Inter Ocean.