The age-herald., 1901-09-05
GETTING THE CORRECT TIME.
How the Noon Hour Is Flashed Ove
 the Country From Washington.

From the New York Sun.
 Every mans time has a certain value to him: that Is, he can so use 1t as to get financial return. But 1t has remained for one of the great corporations to establish the literal truth of the proverb, "Time is money" by actually dealing in the fieeting hour as a commodity. According to care- fully computed figures the Western Union Telegraph Company receives annually nearly if not fully a million dollars from the trade In this intangible medium. As the company pays nothing for It's goods and Is put to no expense but that of de- livery the business Is profitable oneand as it's operations extend from border to border of the country In all sections, the monopoly is as extensive as 1t Is remun- erative.
 How can so volatile commodity as "correct time" be sold?
 From the United States naval observa- tory in Washington the correct time at noon Is given every day. It is free to any one for the simple asking. The computa- tion of time Is carefully made by staff of experts employed by the government, and the result of their work Is communi- cated by electricity to the various gov ernment departments in the Capital pre- cisely at 12 o'clock every day. The time keepers of the nation likewise touch a button, which causes a spark and click in the offices of the Western Union Tele graph office in every city in the United States where their telegraph lines reach.
 The Western Union Telegraph Company has concession from the government to keep certain instruments in the observa- tory. There Is an attachment leading from these instruments to a large an- nouncer. or electric button, and when the time bell strikes, the news of the correct noon time. sent away to the government offices, Is transmitted simultaneously, and without even the aid of an operator, from the Western Union instruments to points as far west as San Francisco and as far south as New Orleans.
 As matter of fact, it requires but the astonishingly short space of one-f1fth of a second to notify every state in the Union that the noon hour has arrived. In the very twinkling of an eye the little electric spark is flashed over thousands of miles oi wire TduidllnS tOWaTu all points or the compass.
 The wonderful feat Is accomplished only, however, after an absolute suspension of the entire telegraph business of the na- tion. Every wire Is cleared of work, no matter how important 1t may be- just be- fore 12 o'clock noon, eastern time, each day. For three and one-half minutes not a sound of a Western Union ticker Is heard in the United States. The telegraph operators in every part of the country cease sending or receiving messages and arrange the wires so that there may be an uninterrupted and unbroken connec- ton with Washington to all points in the United States to which the wires extend their intricate meshes.
 The process carried out by the teIe- graph company was one of the princinal objects of the naval observatory It was originally intended by the government of fcials that time balls should be dropped exactly at the hour of noon in all the sea port towns so that seafaring men might set their chronometers at the true solar time. This the Western Union antici pated and offset by their present system of flashing their noon time to their thou- sands of clocks throughout the length and breadth of the nation, by which tens of thousands of watches have their hands turned backward or forward to the exact hour mark