The times., 1899-07-30
WHERE TIE DAY BEGINS
A Curiously Crooked International
Date Line.
1t Starts in the Bchring Sea and
zigzngs Down the racinc. Crossing
and Recrossing The One Hundred
and Efshtieth Degree of Longi-
tude-A New Phase of the Subject.


on the subject of time. They read news in
in America, before it was transmitted from
Manila. 1t is difficult for many people to
determine whether it is yesterday or tomor-
row in our far eastern possessions.
Ii man who was provided with a par
ticularly accurate timepiece were to station
himself in one spot in low latitudes and
carefully note the succession of day and
night for exactly 100 hours he would say at
the end of the period that precisely thirty
days had elapsed. Then were he TO repeat
the experiment, while journeying eastward
at such speed that he could go completely
around the world in that interval, he would
say that thirty-one days had passed. The
sun certainly would have crossed from his
shifting eastern horizon to his shifting
western horizon that number of times while
he was on his way And il this was his
only method of reckoning he would date
his arrival one day later in the week and
month than his stay home friends did.
Finally, if he varied the test by travel
ing westward instead of eastward, and
managed to return to his starting point
| just 720 hours from the moment of his de-
parture, he would have observed only
twenty ynine passages of the sun overhead.
In each of these three instances the earth
would have rotated on its axis just thirty
times; but when the man was on the wing,
| going either toward or away from the SUM-
rise, he would witness one more or one
| less transit of the orb OF day through the
heavens than if he had been stationary;
and the day itself would be correspond
! iuPly lenpthcupd Or shortened.
| This difference in time, which amounts
| to an hour for every fifteen degrees of lon
| gitude east or west, did not come to be a
| stumbling block to mariners until CEN
! tury or so ago. So long as the Phoenicians
kept inside the Mediterranean, or essayed
only few hundred miles beyond the Pill
ars of Hercules, they had little occasion
to notice the phenomenon. When Caesar s
legions, having invaded Gaul, pushed over
into Britain they carried the days of the
week and year that were recognized in
Rome into their new dominions. Whether
the merchants of ancient Europe invaded
India by land or sea, they experienced no
| inconvenience on this account. They may
have discovered that the days seemed to
! be a trifie shorter while they were jour
neying eastward, and longer while going
west. But no matter where they went
there was no confusion in the reckoning of
4
tude merely. Even Columbus and his fol-
lowers carried the calendar of Europe to
America and made it connect directly with
that of the Old World,
When, however vepturesome navigators
crossed the Pacific Ocean they encoun-
tered a problem that had not been faced
before. Sailing westward from Valparaiso
or San Francisco, they found that the Chi
nese, japanese, and East Indians were a
day ahead of the Americans; and sailing
eastward, they found that America was a
day behind the Asiatic almanac. 1t thus
became necessary, every time they crossed
the octan, to correct their logbooks and
scheme of dating letters it,. in those old
h days, they undertook to write letters at all.
Thus, by degrees, grew up the custom OF
setting the calendar back a day when 60
ing in one direction and setting it forward
when going the other way. In one case
there would be a skip from Monday, May
s, to Wednesday, May 10, for instance, and
in the other case there would be a Mon
day, May s, of double length.
Inasmuch as the 1S0th meridian of longi-
tude divided the Pacific very nearly in the
middle, that line was adopted as d conven-
lent guide for the change. That Is TO say
vessels OF the United States and English
navies, in crossing the ocean from America
to Asia, or in coming this way, Away:
| CldNge tnelr TeChOUlns at tHhI
no matter how far north or south. TIL,
practice OF the merchant marine conform!
in general to this programme. The shiI
might be going from Cape Horn to Vladi-
vostock from San Francisco to Manila Of
from Vancouver to Melbourne. but in an,
case the 1S0th meridian would be the lin,
at which the reckoning would be changed
new phase of this subject is presente,
by the fact that there are hundreds of isl
49, zig Ill
ocean. There is general concentration o
dots In the southwestern portion OF thi
vast expanse, but the islands are not con
fined to that region by any means. Now
civilization has advanced far enough o.
some of these oases in the desert Of water
| for the natives TO keep track of time an
their calendars are therefore adjusted in
, general way to that of the rest of tn
world But it has become necessary for tn
inhabitants of these isles of the sea t
choose between the dates that prevail 81
> multaneously in America and Asia.
, The commercial intercourse which exis:c
, . | between China, Japan, Borneo, Sumatrs
Australia. and New Zealand naturally lie
to the adoption OF the same day for Mon
/, day in those regions, whereas similar cir
cumstances have assimllated the usage c
Hawaii TO that of California. But th
, boundary which separates the remainln
as one might suppose, the simple straigh
!, line made down the map of the Pacific b
the 1S0th meridian. II is cIriously crook
! ed. In reply TO recent enquiry on thi
point Prof William HarkHess. of the Nav;
Observatory, kindly defined the information
) al date line, as it is called, as follows:
; Starting in the Arctic Ocean. 1t run
along the 169th meridian of west longitud
: southwark to latitude 65 degrees north
k thence in a southwesterly direction to
= point situated in longitude 172 degree
It east from Greenwich and latitude So dc
{ grees north; thence southwark along ths
d meridian to latitude 10 degrees north
d thence eastward to longitude 15o degree
e west; thence southwark I'd latitude 10 dc
u grees south; thence westward to longitud
y 1856 degrees west; thence southwark
= latitude 20 degrees south: thence diagc
II nally to a point In longitude $50 degree
=, to the South Pole.
THE object of this rather tortuol
:, course of the date line IS doubtless to pre-
!, vent the Inconvenience of having differel
- DAYS of the week simultaneously in neigt
= boring countries. The line is determine
&c by local usage on the various islands al
10 continents between which it passes. 5
e far as ! know, there Is no information
,e agreement in regard TO the matter"
n AS one glances at the map he can readi
, understand most of the eccentricities he
ID indicated. obviouslysit Is wise thing
swing the time boundary far enough to Il
m eastward to pass down through Behrir
= Strait, rather than have 1t slice off
& from Russia by strict adherence to Il
N isOth meridian Again, 1t is a sensib
" idea to carry the line far enough to ives
,a ward to include the further Aleutians Wi
ls the main system OF islands.
/ The most remarkable freak of the da
~ line is the eastward extension 10 the 10"