Evening journal., 1901-11-06

hour strikes in Washington. In every
large city throughout the United States,
including Wilmington, time balls at
the same minute 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 Observa-
tory in Washington, and its original
design was to furnish mariners at sea-
board cities with the means of regulat-
ing their chronometers. Like a great
many other government institutions,
1t has strayed from its original pur-
poses, and now it serves another of
more general usefulness. There is a
strong national feeling against pater-
nalism in the United States, but there
are many small ways in which pater-
nalism flourlshes without hindrance.
!, The time service is ostensibly free;
actually it is not free. but costs the
owner Of each clock $15 a year. The
Government furnishes the signal free,
but the Government does not deliver it,
If you want to string a wire TO the
Naval Observatory from your office,
the Navy Department will furnish you
the signal every day without money
and without price. But the stringing
of wires is costly and attended with
great difficulties. So you necessarily
turn to the telegraph company, with its
350.000 miles of wire and this company
puts a wire into your Office and con-
meets it with its great system which has
; wire running to the observatory. No
one knows what the company receives
from its time service. but reckoned on
u basis of S15 a clock each year. and
10000 clocks, the amount should be
more than a million dollars. The sum
it receives for suspending all business
on its wire from 1157 to II o'clock.
Washington time, each day, and giving
the operator at the Naval Observatory
full control Of them. Actually the
operator there does not send the signal
lit 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.
At THE NAVAL OBSERVATORY
The Naval Observatory contains a
great many fine instruments. 1t holds
what was for a time the largest tele-
, scope in the United States-the 26-inch
Clark equatorial-which cost $4,000
and was erected in 1873. The Lick
telescope in California, S6-inch, soon
took from the Government the distinc-
ton OF owning the greatest telescope,
: and that in, few years was exceeded
by the Yerkes telescope, 40 inches.
With the Clark telescope Professor
Hall discovered the satellites Of Mars,
land there are other discoveries to its
credit in astronomical history.
: The big telescope has nothing to do
with the time signal. The telescope
uesd in the business OF measuring
time is the transit instrument, which
= is muoh smaller. In Washington on each
!, clear night, an observer watches the
movement of the stars. and by their aid
corrects the big Frodsham clock which
stands in the signal room. In the max
ing of the observations the web of THE
: spider plays an important part. Threads
Of cObwebs are not only fine, but won
derfully strong for the fineness. They
, also possess a remarkable stability.
! not being affected 10y moisture and
neither expanding nor contracting with
changes in the temperature. These
threads are used to make cross lines
extending at right angles across the
5 field Of view. so as to divide it into
- math ematical spaces. For this pur-
- pose it is found that spiders webs
gathered near Washington are more
efficacious than those which can be OBJ
tained elsewhere. Some years ago the
3 directors of the observatory sent to
: China for webs. thinking that the large
spiders of that country would produce
an especially desirable web. But 1t
: was found that in their peculiar field
I the American spiders we're superior to
- the fOreign-anOther triumph for home
- industries. The Washington spider
webs are obtained by expeditions sent
out in June OF each year. They collect
1 from barns and fences the cocoon OF
I big turtle back" spiders. Each CO.
y coon is wound with a single filament
s and this is relied off and used to divide
n the telescopes field of view. BY their
aid the observer measures the move
ments of the stars and determines ex-
= actly the time. The big clock is regu-
G lated to the minutest measurable frac
o ton OF a second and left to feel its
S measured way through the hours til
l. morning. 1t is not affected by any o
the movements that jar tall b:ildings
and shake smaller ones, for it is secure
e in a deep sunk pedestal of granite.
REGULATING cHRoNoMETERs
All through the signal room, as tho
= day observer enters. there is buzz az
of grasshOppers in the field on warn
summer day. This is the voice of tn,
chronOmeters. which fill long woOdeI
Ie cases. All the navy's chronOmeter
Is are sent here TO be regulated.
U. Opposite the Frodsham clock are tive
less costly timepieces. which contain
le the mechanism for sending out TIN
as time signal These timepieces COS
D. between $500 and $500 a piece Their
is. by the way. another clock in tn
observatory. for which Congress pai'
es $4,000 IL was invented by DR.. JChl
e. Locke. of Cincinnati. in 1S49 and wa
IT. the first apparatus for transmittin
time automatically. II is running now
p but its only use is TO measure time.
'el The Frodsham clock is set for side