The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1894-10-13
When the Day Begins.
From the Washington star.

Time Is reckoned by means of meridians
of longitude which are represented as i'm
aginary lines extending from pole to pole
on the earth surface. Whenever the
sun is directly over one of these meridians
it is noon at all places through which the
line passes Of course railroad or
standard time must not be eonfounded
with actual time, for by this arbitrary
through very convenient system there are
only four different times from one coast to
the other, whereas, according to real or
actual time, every town, village and city
throughout the Union has different time,
except those that happen to lie in the same
meridian. As the earth is constantly re-
volying from west to east, it is continually
bringing different meridian under the sun,
and as each passes beneath it the time of
every place upon the meridian changes
from noon to afternoon, or from meridian
to postmeridian, and the farther away it
travels the later the time becomes until it
arrives at point directly opposite the sun,
when it is midnight From this point,
then, the meridian begins to travel towards
the sun, and the time changes to anti
meridian until after a journey of "a hours
it again reaches the noon point, and so on
to the end of time.
For the convenience of making the cir
conference the earth is divided into $50
equal parts, known as degrees, and the
meridian passing through the observatory
at Greenwich in London is chosen as the
center or starting point for the numbering
of these divisions of longitude. Hence the
meridian of Greenwich is known as longi-
tude naught, the first degree to the east
being called longitude one degree east, and
the first degree to the west being known
as longitude one degree west, and so on
By the time we cross the Atlantic and
reach Philadelphia or Washington we have
got beyond Greenwich to a distance Of,
roughly speaking, rs degrees, or, in other
words, Washington is said to be in longi-
tude rs degrees west. If. on the other
hand, we travel across Europe into Asia
for similar distance, We reach point IS
degrees east.
On degree of longitude is equal to four
minutes of time, or, in other words, every l5
degrees are equal to an hour, so that when
a meridian has passed beyond the sun for
a distance of 80 degrees it is 2 clock in
the afternoon at all places on that meridian,
or it is 0 o clock in the morning if the
meridian has still 30 degrees TO travel be-
fore reaching the point directly. beneath
the sun.
Supposing it is midnight on July 4 in
London longitude naught, we will find
that in St Petersburg, longitude 80 de-
grees east, it is . o clock in the morning
of July4 Fifteen degrees farther east, or
longitude 45. it is 3 clock in the morn
ing. AT longitude 60 degrees east it is 4
o clock, and so on. Every 10 degrees We
find it an hour earlier, until finally, arriv-
ing at longitude $50 degrees east, we are
exactly - hours earlier than London and
on the other side of the earth directly op-
-nosite longitude naught In other words,
when it is midnight or July a IofdI@
it is II o clock noon of that day on longi-
tude $50 degrees east 1t might be stated,
by the way, that what we call noon is in
reality the beginning of-the day, and all
astronomers SO reckon.