The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1909-08-18
Time OF THE NATION,
How 1t Is Kept at the Naval Oh.
servatory In Washington.
THE SIGNAL FOR HIGH NOON.

II Is Flashed Out Over Nearly a Mil
lion Miles Of Telegraph Wires Every
Day In the Year-The Finely Ad-
iustsd instruments That Are Used.
A few minutes before Il o'clock noon
every day in the year u young man
walks into certain room of the main
building Mt the naval observatory.
which is SET up ON II hill in the north
western part of the District of Column
bia. He glances at the various clocks
In the room and then goes over to n
table which ia covered with electric
apparatus.
He watches the clocks to his left
closely and waits for the hands to
reach 11:55. AS the second hand APP
proaches the GO ON the dial he pre-
pares to shift switch. The clock Is
so finely adjusted that when the Sec
ond hand points to 60 It exactly marks
the beginning of new minute.
AS it touches the 60 the switches
are thrown on. That starts signal
that goes out instantaneously over
100000 miles OF telegraph lines. In
Washington. New York. Buffalo, Cleve
land, Newport, Baltimore, Newport
News, Norfolk. Savannah, New Or
leans, Key West, Galveston, Chicago
and elsewhere the time balls go up on
their poles. People know that 1t Is
five minutes to noon, Washington time.
The clock which keeps the time In
m 10 MT fInLs With
tick there Is contact of electric
points. A circuit Is closed, and an In
strument on the table similar In ap-
pearanee to a telegraph sounder ticks
away loudly.
II goes ON to the twenty-nin sec
ond. then skips one tick, then resumes
its steady sounding until the last five
seconds; then there Is another gap.
These gaps are for the purpose of
giving listeners at the other ends OF
the great system of wires chance to
know what part OF the minute the
clock is on. So II goes up to the last
minute
At the twenty-ninth second there is
again the skipping of one second.
Finally the clock gets around to the
fiftieth second. Then the circuit re-
mains open for ten seconds. There IN
silence all along the telegraph wires.
At the other end, where there are
time balls or merely train operators,
the long pause indicates that noon IL
almost there. The second hand makes
on toward 60 and finally reaches
the mark. Then there Is another click ;
in about n second the sounder is down,
and that tells hundreds Of thousands
of people that 1t is noon In Washing
ton.
It is a wonderful operation. this get.
ting the time, and highly technical.
Finely adjusted clocks, chronographs
and other Instruments of great value
are used, and the taking and recording
of the time have reached n point where
the human equation is practically elm
mated.
The results obtained are OF great
value, particularly to mariners. The
time IL not only flashed to hundreds
OF points in the United States, but It
Is sent far out to sea by wireless. A
cable carries the fash to Havana; an
other to Panama and CallaO, Peru.
The observatory here does not send
the time much farther west than the
Rockies. but they have an observatory
at the Mare Island navy yard, and
from there the time Is sent up and
down the Pacific coast. Just as 1t Is
from here to the eastern part Of the
United States. In the cities where the
central time Is used the flash marks
II o'clock. An hour later local opera
tors drop the time balls.
The mean time is determined by as
Economical observations. When GER
tain stars pass the seventy merid
ian, called the meridian Of Washing
ton, II Is a certain time. The operator
watches for the stars through a tele
scope, the field of which Is covered
with fine wires.
As the stars reach certain point In
transit the operator presses q key In
his hand A contact IL made and re-
corded on chronograph. The chrome
graph consists Of cylinder covered
with paper. A fountain pen rests on
the paper II Is held by an arm at
tached to the mechanism. The cylIn-
der revolves once minute, and the
pen moves along the surface OF the
paper, making spiral line.
A sidereal clock OF the finest make liz
running IN vault underneath the OBJ
seryatory With each tick OF the
clock there Is a contact Of two points.
These two points are attached to wires
that lead to an electro-magnet at
tached to the arm that holds the pen
Of the chronograph. The clock Is 80
adjusted that each minute the pen
jumps to one side. Consequently there
IL a break In the line.
There are other breaks, too, when
the observer watches the stars
cross the lines In the field of the
telescope. The mean time thus re-
corded for each star, after being cor
rected for errors, Is the clock time OF
the stars transit. Whatever difference
there Is between the clock time and
the sidereal time marked by the trans
1t of the stars Is the error OF the
clock. From these astronomical OBJ
servatiOns the sidereal time Is OBJ
tanned. The error amounts to but
little, rarely being more than from
five one-hundredths to ten one-hun-
dredths Of second.
The time Of sending fash over the
wires IL practically nothing. fash
has reached Greenwich, England, In
three-tenths Of second.-Was5!Bgtc
Cor. Chicago Inter Ocean.