The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-02-02
THE MISSING DAY.
An Interesting Imaginary Line Drawn In
the Pacific Ocean.

An Interesting Imaginary Line Drawn In
the Pacific Ocean.
A question which has often been
asked, but rarely answered satisfac-
torily, is, how far one would have to
go around the earth, moving east and
west, and supposing no time lost in
transition, before one would reach the
point where to-day changes into yes
terday or tomorrow. Evidently there
must be such a point somewhere, for
an hour is lost every fifteen degrees
one goes to the east and an hour
gained every fifteen degrees one goes
to the west.
To put the question in another way,
suppose it is one minute past midnight
in Paris on the morning of October 1,
what day is it at that same moment at
the antipodes of Paris? Is it October 1
or September 80?
Apparently one can prove that it is
either of these by making an instanta
neous journey half way around tie
earth, either to the east or to the west.
Going east, at the moment the Paris
clocks point to minute past midnight,
it is approximately one o'clock in the
morning of October 1 at Vienna, two
o'clock of the samelday at Sebastopol,
three o'clock at'Astrakhan, four o'clock
at Bokhara, seven o'clock at Saigon.
nine o'clock at Yokohama, eleven
o'clock at Pine island, and at Fortune
island-the 1st of October at every
point
On the other hand, going westward.
one finds that it is ten o'clock in the
evening of September 30 at the Azores
islands, eight o'clock in the evening at
Buenos Ayres, seven o'clock at New
York, six o'clock at New Orleans, fif-
teen minutes past three at Mexico city,
one o'clock in the afternoon near the
Aleutian islands, ana noon at the For
tune islands-the date being Septem-
Der 80 in each case.
Thus one has demonstrated that it is
noon of October and noon of Septem-
Der 80 at the same place and at the
same time.
This would certainly be embarrass-
ing to the good people of Fortune
island, and in order to avoid such COM
plications and relieve well-meaning
islanders in the Pacific from mixing
up their Saturdays and Sundays in
hopeless fashion an arbitrary line sep
arating to-day from yesterday or to-
morrow 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
Hebrides and the New Caledonian
groups and passes near the Marion
islands and the Caroline islands.
Captains of vessels, Judging by the
positions of the islands mentioned.
can fix the date within a few minutes.
Vessels sailing from west to east, on
passing the imaginary line, simply re-
peat the day before on their logbooks,
which consequently show two days
Bearing the same date.
On the other hand. ships going in
the opposite direction skip tomorrow
and lose day entirely. In the first case
the sailors get an extra days pay; in
the second place they lose days pay.
The conclusion of the whole matter
is that when Paris clocks indicate a
minute past midnight on October it
is October 1 going east as far as the
imaginary line just indicated, while
it is September 80 going west up to the
same line.-Chicago Tribune.