Evening star., 1927-10-16

Fourth of July. The question then
arises: Where did this day. the Fourth
of July, begin? 1t was not in America
where 1t should have begun. for the
energetic Americans in New York and
Philadelphia, to whom we have refer
red. were thinking about breakfast in
the morning of the Sd. Yet at the
same time the Fourth of July was
dawning in New Zealand. Did Inde-
pendence day dawn, therefore, in New
zealand: or in some other country be-
tween that point and America?
| The truth is that there is no defined
place where the day can be said to
begin first of all. Civilization origi.
nally spread from east to west across
the Old World and then across the
New. and civilization carries the calen.
dar with it. The day came from the
East and travelled across to the West.
and no one asked whence 1t originally
came nor where 1t ultimately ended.
Thus. long-established usage, treating
the day as appearing first in the Old
| World and then proceeding to the
New. left no place for its formal birth
place, except the wide waters of the
Pacific Ocean, and as traffic began to
cross that ocean and the question was
forced upon mems minds a sort of
understanding was arrived at that the
day should be deemed to begin there.
According TO the way in which the
arrangement is now carried out, the
first land that the new day dawns
upon is Easter Island, about 230 miles
west of the coast of Chile, South
America. That is to say. the Fourth
OF July breaks there within a. few
hours of the Sd, having broken on
the eastern coast of America. In this
manner the two days run on together
the Fourth in Easter Island and places
west OF 1t and the Sd in all places on
the American continent. But to have
the start of all the rest of the world
Is not an unmitigated advantage to
these islanders. Suppose one of them
| sails east to America, what Is the re.
suit? He will find tht they keep the day
there under a different date, that he
is. in fact. nearly "a hours ahead of
| time. If, on the other hand, an Ameri.
can crosses the invisible line where
the day begins in travelling from East
to West. he will find the date In the
part of the world he has entered to be
| i'm advance Of his own calendar.
| This fact was curiously illustrated
| in the case of Magellan, the Portu-
guese captain. who sailed round the
world from east to west in 1922. and
ha yin crossed the magic line of days
birth" In his ocean Wander1ngS, his
I calendar became a day in arrear. The
! sailors were. of course. ignorant OF
this, and finding, on landing in Portu-
| gal, that their Sabbath was falling on
Monday, they accused one another of
| tampering with the reckoning. 1t was
not for some time that the true expla-
! nation was discovered.
TO put the matter in another way:
In sailing round the world eastward
| the days are each little less than "a
hours, according to the speed Of the
ship, as the sun is met a little earlier
each morning. These little differences
added together will amount to "a
hours. This gives the sailors an extra
day, not in imagination, but in actual
fact: they will have done an extra
days work, eaten an extra days ration
of food.
| On the other hand. sailing westward
the sun is overtaken little each day,
and so each day is rather longer than
"a hours and clocks and watches are
| found to be too fast. This also will
amount, in sailing round the world,
to the point of departure, to
one whole day, by which the
reckoning has fallen into ar
rear. The eastern bound ship. then.
has gained a day and the westward
bound ship has lost, one. This strange
fact leads to the apparent paradox
that the first-named ship has a gain
iof two whole days over the latter, IL
I'VE suppose them to have departed
and returned tcesther.