The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-08-31

Greenwich, we can consider it as being
either $50 degrees east or $50 degrees
west. But if we call it $50 degrees east
its time will be twelve hours later than
Greenwich, and if we call it $50 degrees
west, its time will be twelve hours
earlier than Greenwich Evidently
there will be difference of just TWEEN
ty-four hours, or one whole day, be-
tween these two possible ways of reck-
oning its time. This circumstance has
actually led to considerable confusion
in some of the islands of the Pacific
ocean. The navigators who discovered
the various islands naturally gave them
the date which they brought from Eu-
rope. And as some of these navigators
sailed eastward, around the Cape Of
Good Hope, the others westward around
cape Horn. the dates they gave to the
several islands differed by just one day.
The state of affairs at the present
time has been adjusted by sort of in
formal agreement. An arbitrary line
has been drawn on the map of the
world near the $50 degrees longitude
circle. and il has been decided that the
islands on the east side of this line shall
count their longitudes west from Green
witch, and those west of the line shall
count longitude east from Greenwich.
Thus Samoa is nearly $50 degrees west
of Greenwich. while the Fiji islands are
nearly $50 degrees east. Yet the is
lands are very neal each other, though
the arbitrary line passes between them.
AS a result. when it is Sunday in Sa-
moa it is Monday in the Fiji islands.
The arbitrary line described here is
sometimes called the international date
line. 1t does not pass very near the
Philippine islands, which are situated
in about l2G degrees east longitude, and.
therefore, use a time about eight hours
ahead of Greenwich. New York. being
about "A degrees west of Greenwich, is
about five hours behind in time. Conse-
quently, as we may remark in passing,
Philippine time is about thirteen hours
ahead of New York time. Thus, 5
o'clock Sunday morning. May 1. in Ma
Mia would correspond TO o'clock Sat
urdsy afternoon, April 80. in New York.
We shall conclude this article with a
brief explanation of the so-called
Standard or railroad time, which
came into general use in the United
States some few years ago, and has
since been pretty generally adopted
throughout the world. 1t requires but
a few moments consideration to see
that the accidental situation of the diff
ferent large cities in any country VIII
cause their local times to differ by odd
numbers of hours. minutes ard seconds.
Thus a great deal of inconvenience has
a train might leave New York at a GER
tain hour by New York time. 1t would
then arrive in Buffalo some hours later
by New York time. But it would leave
Buffalo by Buffalo time, which is quite
different. Thus there would be sort of
jump in the timetable at Buffalo, and
it would be 2 jump of an odd number
of minutes. 1t would be different in
different cities, and very hard to re-
member. Indeed as each railway
usually ran its trains by the time used
in the principal city along its line, it
might happen that three or four differ
ent railroad times would be used in
single city where several roads met.
This mas all been avoided by introduc-
ing the standard time system. Accord
ing to this, the whole country is di-
vided into a series of time zones. Is de-
grees wide. and so arranged that the
middle of each zone falls at point
whose longitude from Greenwich is co.
20. 80, 105 or 120 degrees. The times at
these middle points are. therefore, be-
hind Greenwich time by an even num-
Der of hours. Thus the 75-degree point
is just five hours behind Greenwich
time. All cities then simply use the
time of the nearest one of these special
points The effect of this is not to do
away with time differences altogether
That would manifestly be impossible
from the nature of things. But for the
complicated odd differences in hours
and minutes we have substituted the
infinitely simpler series of differences
in even hours. The traveller from Chi
go to New York can reset his watch
by putting it just one hour ahead. The
minute hand is kept unchanged and no
New York timepiece need be consulted
to set the watch right on arriving.
There can be no doubt that the stand
ara time system must be considered as
one of the most important contribu-
tions of astronomical science to the
of man.