The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-03-31
A Proceeding Made Possible Only by
the Adoption of n Uniform
Standard Time System.
SIGNAL SENT AUTOMATICALLY
THE SERVICE is FURNISHED BY THE
NAVAL OBSERVATORY.
Elaborate and Accurate Machinery
for Measuring Time-Time-Ba1
and Operators Duties.

Correspondence OF the indianapolis Journal.
WASHINGTON, March 29.-There are
70, 600 clocks set by the government every
DAY when the noon hour strikes in Wash
ington. In every large city throughout the
United States time balls at the same min
ute indicate the time TO hundreds watching
for their fall and hundreds of watches are
regulated to correspond with the signal.
This time service comes from the naval
observatory in Washington and its original
design was to furnish mariners at seaboard
cities with the means of regulating their
chronometers. Like a great many other
government institutions it has strayed from
it's original purpose and now ii serves
another of more general usefulness. There
IL a strong national feeling against pa
ternalism in the United States, but there
are many small ways in which paternalism
fourishes without hindrance.
This time service is ostensibly free; &C
tually it is not free, but costs the owner OF
each clock SIS a year. The government
furnises the signal free-but the govern
ment does not deliver it. If you want to
SlL4IS Il WIG ~ II naval
from your office in New York or Chicago,
or San Francisco the Navy Department
will furnish you the signal every day with
out money and without price. But the
stringing of wires is costly and attended
with great difficulties. So you necessarily
turn to the Western Union Telegraph
Company, with its $1,000 miles of wire;
and this company puts a wire into your
office and connects it with its great system
which has a wire running to the observa-
tory. No one knows what the Western
Union Company receives from its lime
service, but reckoned on a basis of SIS a
clock each year and 10000 clocks, the
amount should be more than a million dol
lars. This sum it receives for suspend
ing all business on the wires from 1l:57
to u o'clock, Washington time, each day
and giving the operator at the Naval OBJ
servatory full control of them. Actually
the operator there does not send the sig
nal-it is sent automatically by a remark
able ~clock-and so far as the time balls
are concerned the preliminary work is done
by a man in charge of each, who hoists it
TO position and throws its machinery into
the circuit just before the final signal goes
out.
STANDARD TIME.
The national time signal is made prac-
ticable by the standard time system which
has been adopted in almost every city in
the United States. This system divides the
country into four parts along the lines of
longitude. Each division represents APP
proximately one hour of the suns course.
One of these divisions begins at the sea-
board and ends at a line which passes
through the city of Pittsburg, in Pennsyl-
vania. If you are travelling west on the
famous Chicago Limited, when you get to
Pittsburg you will set your watch back one
hour. Continuing west, when you reach
North Platte, in Nebraska, you will put
your watch back another hour, and at Og-
den you will find that it has gained an hour
more. These divisions are known as East
ern, Central, Mountain and Pacific time.
When it is noon in Washington it is an
even hour in each of these other divisions.
Not every city has adopted this system.
and there are those in which standard
time railroad time" and local time"
are all to be reckoned with.
The Naval Observatory contains a great
many fine instruments 1t holds what was
for a time the largest telescope In the
United States-the twenty-six-inch Clark
equatorial-which cost SAG, 600 and was erect
ed in 1878. The Lick telescope, in Califor-
MIA, thirty-six inches, soon took from the
government the distinction of owning the
greatest telescope, and that. in a few years.
was exceeded by the Yerkes telescope, for
~ inches. With the Clark telescope Pro-
fessor Hall discovered the satellites of
- - 49, 49, -
its credit in astronomical history. The big
telescope has nothing to do with the time
signal. The telescope used in the business
of measuring time is the transit instru-
ment, which is much smaller. Here, on each
| clear night, an observer watches the move
| ment of the stars, and by their aid cor
reefs the big Frodsham clock, which stands
in the signal room. In the making of the
observations the web of the spider plays
an important part. Threads of cobwebs
| are not only fine, but wonderfully strong
, for their fneness. They also possess a
remarkable stability, not being affected by
| moisture, and neither expanding nor con-
tracing with changes in the temperature.
| These threads are used to make cross lines
extending at right angles across the field
Oh NltN, 50 do ~ QlflQt IL iHtO lndllltildO-
cal spaces. For this purpose it is found
that spiders webs gathered near Wash
ington are more eficacious thar those
| which can be obtained Some
years ago the directors of the observatory
sent to China for webs. thinking that the
large spider of that country would produce
| an especially desirable web. But it was
found that in their peculiar field the Amer
lean spiders were superior to the foreign
another triumph for home industries. The
Washington spiders are obtained by expe-
ditions sent out in June of each year. They
collect from barns and fences the cocoons
| of big "turtle-back" spiders. Each cocoon
is wound with a single flament, and this
is reeled off and used to divide the tele-
scopes field of view. By their aid the OBJ.
server measures the movements of the stars
and determines exactly the time. The bis
clock is regulated to the minutest meas.
ureable fraction of a second and left tC
feel its measured way through the hour:
till morning. 1t is not affected by any
movements that jar tall buildings an(
shake smaller ones. for IL is secure on Z
deep sunk pedestal of granite.
MANY CHRONOMETERS.
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