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

lime y reckOned by means OF mef1dlans
of longitude, which are represented as i'm
aginary lines extending from pole to pole
on the earth 5 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 confounded
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 a 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 further 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 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 800
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, IS 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 10
degrees are equal to an hour, so that when
a meridian has passed beyond the sun for
distance of 30 degrees it is 2 O'Clock in
the afternoon at all places on that meridian,
or it is 10 o clock in the morning if the
meridian has still 80 degrees TO travel be-
fore reaching the point directly beneath
the sun
Surprising 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 July T. Fifteen degrees farther east, or
longitude 45, it is 8 o 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-
posite longitude naught. In other words,
when it is midnight Of July I At LofdOFP '-
it is II o clock noon of that day on longi-
tude $50 degrees east. Itmight be stated,
by the way, that what we call noon is in
reality the beginning of-the day, and all
astronomers so reckon