The San Francisco call., 1896-09-13
The Line onEarth
Where the Dau
Begins
Mystery Of a Jour
Of the World Co.
ing Either
Way

On the z4tn OF March, IoSO, george FRAN |
els Train, on his fight around the world
the fastest tour on record-crossed the
1s0th meridian of longitude. That is to say,
it was the oath of March, at 9 O'Clock in
the morning, when the old remodeled
Cunarder approached the line of the 1S0th
degree. When she had passed over-a
matter of few seconds-the date became
o'clock of the morning of the 25th of
March. Now the oath of March happens
TO be Trains birthday. The fact that by
the coincidence of his ship crossing the
dividing line between the day and
o-morrow, or the day and yester-
day, as the case may be, upon the outset
of his great journey, thereby blotting
rom the calendar his own birthday created
a great impression upon his MIND.
Train, among other things, claims than
he is going to live indeinitely-several
hundred years at least, and the loss of his
birthday was full of suggestion TO him.
There goes my birthday" he said. 81
will never have another. 1 have no use
or birthdays, nor for time, which was
made for slaves. What a strange life is
miue." The idea pleased him immensely.
But this story is not about George
Francis Train, but about the 1S0th de-
gree of longitude, which is one of the
most interesting things that travellers
encounter the world over. 1t lives out
in the Pacific, just west Of US some
miles and the traveller arriving at it
and passing over it would not be con-
scious of the fact were it not that the cap
tain, who has been looking at the sun
through his instruments, announces that
it is now Sunday where a moment ago it
was Saturday-the preparations for a
jinks must be changed into preparations
for a religious service.
1t was upon this incident of the cross
ing of the 1S0th degree of longitude that
Jules Verne's interesting story, around
the World in Eighty Days." was based.
Phileas Fogg, however, travelled eastward
around the world and thereby gained
day, whereas George Francis Train travel
ing westward lost one-and Train, not
withstanding, made the journey in sixty
five days.
This change of the date in mid-ocean
forms an interesting subject of discussion
in the cabin and smoking-room of every
trans-Pacifc ship, and usually the more
discussion it gets the more it puzzles the
mind-just how it happens. To reach the
climax to which he wrote his story, Mr..
Verne, however, had to keep his hero
entirely in the dark concerning it.
Probably that fact suggested the name of
the hero-Fogg. 1t certainly must have
suggested his character, that of a taciturn,
uncompanionable Englishman, who kept
to his cabin. Fogg crossed the dividing
line between the calendar days without
being aware of it, arrived in San Francisco,
crossed the American continent, arrived in
New York and fused about the metropolis
two days in search of a steamer to carry
him across the Atlantic, arrived in Eng
land and went to London without having
discovered that the day of the week and
the day of the month had changed that
when he thought it was Sunday, it was
really Saturday; on the day he reckoned
as Monday, all the rest of the world was
going to church. But that is not this story
either, that was Mr.. Verne's story.
Few people have paused to think OF the
necessity of line being drawn on the
earth that shall distinctly mark the divi-
sion between the calendar days. To every
body everywhere else the day begins when
the sun rises in the east, and closes when
it goes down. On the east side OF this
mystic line in the Pacific it is this morn
ing Sunday. Step across it and this morn
ing is Monday, the same hour of the clock
exactly.
Does person travelling round the world
actually gain or lose day? They do of
course, for a good calendar will not lie.
But why2 This is the question that puz-
zles the people on shipboard, to whom
only it is really brought home. The
writer put it to professor of the Harvard
University and he was by no means at
ease in explaining it.
Were a man to travel over the earth's
surface from east to west as rapidly as the
earth revolves, starting at high noon, the
sun would remain Immediately overhead
to him, for the twenty-four hours. There
would have been no sunrise or sunset for
him that day. So far as the registry of
the sun was concerned, he would have
been still enjoying the noon hour, while
all other men on the earth were returning
to their afternoon labors going to their
homes after the la abors of the day, going to
the theater in the evening, retiring to bed
and to sleep, rising in the morning and
beginning the next days labors and again
going to lunch at noon. During the course
of his IorM noon hour the calendar had
dome its work, however. This illustrates
how the loss of a day may be best realized,
perhaps.
Let this traveller start at noon on this
same Journey and go as slowly as he
will-1O0 years in making the circuit-he
will have by these slow degrees filched
from the calendar one full day and no
mora. He will have seen the sun rise and
set not SO many times by one as the man
who has remained stationary upon the
earth's surface He is not aware OF the
fact, however, but there is place IN his
Journey where he is brought to realiza-
lion by a sudden adjustment; the long
score is evened UP in an instant, and he is
set right in his dates with the people on
the other side of the world who have re-
NAMED contentedly at home. When the
traveller was moving from the east TO the
west with the same rapidity with which
the earth reyolved he was simply negatiy-
il. i4r -.ao4i1.. nIInrriran It's surfaca to mass