Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-01-02
us. RANKSSEVENTH
ON NEW YEAR LIST
Half Dozen Other Countries
Will Have Welcomed 1927
Before America.

When and where does the New
| Year begin?
"On the stroke of midnight Deem
Der 81" would probably be the off,
hand answer of most, in so far as the
time is concerned. But the matter
is not quite SO simple, as is explained
in a bulletin from the headquarters
of the National Geographic Society.
1.-The United States, accustomed to
ranking pretty highly i'll the estinla-
ton of the world. has to content 1t
self with being about sixth rate III
the eyes of Father Time" says the
bulletin. Tile serves his New Year
to Australia Asia, Africa. Europe
and most of South America before ne
gets around to the first of our citizens
in Maine. Then for three more
hours the people Of California must
MUNICH the crusts and pick the bones
OF the old year before they receive
fresh helping of time; and the resi-
dents of Alaska must wait still TWO
hours more.
while we sit iInpatiently on our
westernmost continent watching
Father Time bustling about helping
l. the platters of the rest of the world
we can get some slight solace from
the possession of overseas terri
tories, Through them we have few
representatives at least who can SIT
in at the early tables on New Year
dav. Guam will have it's New Year
as early as eastern Australia, ana
two hours later 1927 will reach the
Philippines at the same time that IL
arrives in eastern China.
"what appears at first glance to
be O confusing time situation In tne
world can be simp.ified by little
imagination We know that the eaftn
rotates through space. Imagine that
at fixed points In this space. just
above the earth's surface, hour
marks are in some way suspended.
and that the earth turns beneath
them lust as the hour hand of a clock
turns within the circle of Its hour
marks. There will be "a hour marks
for our earth clock, and "A point on
the earth viii turn once from any
mark and back to it in "a hours. (Ine
hour hand of clock makes two CIR
cults under it's II marks in this same
period.)
Construct Earth Clocks.
I'm placing our imaginary hour
marks in space we do not need 10
exercise a great deal of imagination.
The four most important marks are
already fixed for us. the nan Oh
the earth toward the sun is always
lighted the half away from the sun
is ALWAYS in shadow. The key marx
ia the noon line, the line from the
center of the sun to the center or
the lighted half of the earth. Inc
midnight line is the exact center OF
the earth's shadow cast by the sun,
or the line that would be made OH
the other side of the world by the
noon line IL 1t were extended right
through the globe. The line that a.
vides the lighted half from the snao-
ed half of the earth in the East IS the
| 6 pm. line, and in the west the
| q m line. If one fills in five equally
spaced imaginary hour lines do de-
grees apart) between these four
| rea dvmade lines the earth clock Is
! constructed.
"When we grasp the conception or
such an earth clock we see tnat AT
| any given moment every one OF the
| "a hours of the day exists somewhere
| on the earths surface. AT Just one
| insta mt during each day these - hours
! belong to the same date; that Is, When
| it is exactly noon at Greenwich, Eng
land. At that instant on Friday. De
|. cember 81, 1926, say, it was O'Clock
| Friday morning along the Atlantic
| coast of the United States; on the
pacific coast: in Alaska. land just
| past midnight 0he beginning OF FIJI
| dsvl in British Samoa. In New Iea-
! land II was Just before midnight tine
| close of Friday; in Guam 1t was ~
| o'clock, Friday evening; the people OF
Burma and Siam were at their friday
! evening meals: while i'll central Eu-
rope and the Near East IL was carry
| Friday afternoon.
| "a most interesting situation exists
| at the IsOth longitude line III the
middle OF the Pacific Ocean. rms If
! known as the international date hne.
| II is exactly halfway around the
world from the longitude line thai
passes through Greenwich: and at tht
| instant under consideration moon
| Greenwich. the date line is directly
under the midnight line If you were
| on a tiny island lying just a few feet
west OF the 1s0th degree Of longitude
your last few minutes were:
! f1:5S, 1859, L., Friday night. Obvi.
! ouslv, the next minute on your island
belonged to Saturday
"a new dav is born, therefore once
! every "a. hours, when the 1S0th de-
gree Of longitude (the date linel passes
under the midnight line You. or
your little island. We're carried, as the
earth turns. farther and farther int
| Saturday. When you had turned 10
degrees past the midnight line it was
for YOU l am. Saturday; 80 degrees 2
| n m. and so on. Behind you. Saturday
was growing, between your meridian
q sOth) and the midnight line. Every
bit OF territory that passes under that
line in space enters Saturday; and so
the new day spreads over an addi-
tional one.twenty-fourth of the earth
each hour.
but as you swung deeper into Sat
urday, a companion on second island
| half city block east of Won (iuEt
| east Of the date line) was turning
| into Friday at the same rate. and his
| hour was approximately the same
as yours. Thus, when 1t was 1 am.
Saturday on your island, 1t would have
been am. Friday on his. So Satur-
day goes chasing Friday around the
| world like dog with his tail in his
teeth. The day behind (west on the
ls0th meridian is always growing, the