One of our humorists has wittily depicted the blank astonishment of
ocean voyagers whose watches, “never out of order at home,” utterly
failed, as their owners journeyed to eastern lands, to keep pace with
the flight of time. Each noon as the vessel’s officers made their
observations and set their chronometers with the advanced meridian
reached, found the passengers’ “Frodshams” lagging rearward. A matter,
however, easily explained. Time is regulated by the sun. Wherever the
sun is on a north and south line, or meridian, at that place it is
noon, and the time obtained by such an observation (to say nothing
of the equation of time) is “local” time. As, then, the vessel moved
east, each day it met the sun (or rather the sun reached the meridian)
earlier than on the day preceding, and all the watches and clocks had
to be put ahead just as many minutes as equaled the number of minutes
of longitude made by the vessel. In sailing west, the sun would arrive
at the meridian later each day, and time-pieces would be too fast, and
would have each day to be correspondingly “turned back.”
Of course, the same thing occurs on land. If we travel east our watches
become too slow; if west, too fast; and the traveler is constantly
occupied comparing his local time with those of the places he visits
and of the trains on which he is carried. If in Pittsburgh, he finds
western trains running by Columbus time, twelve minutes slower than
Pittsburgh; eastern trains _via_ Pennsylvania Central R. R., nineteen
minutes faster; and eastern trains on the Baltimore and Ohio road
fourteen minutes faster—just four standards for one city.
After some fourteen years of discussion among scientists and railroad
men, an expedient has been finally adopted by which one clock will
exhibit the “time” of the whole world. And it is simply this: Since
by the earth’s revolution on its axis, any (all) point on the earth’s
surface passes through 360° every twenty-four hours, or at the rate of
15° each hour, the surface can be divided into twenty-four sections,
each 15° of arc, or one hour of time, in breadth, having for its
standard time, the time of its (the section’s) middle meridian. This
makes the difference in time between any two adjacent sections exactly
one hour. Thus, if at Greenwich it is noon, from 7½° to 22½° west of
Greenwich it is only 11:00 a. m., while in the section included by the
meridians 7½° to 22½° east, it is 1:00 p. m. Or, when it is 3:25 p. m.
at Greenwich, it is 2:25 and 4:25 p. m. respectively in the sections
directly west and east of the Greenwich section; and 1:25 and 5:25 p.
m. respectively in the next adjoining sections; and so on. Now applying
this principle to our own country, we have the following scheme:
----------+-----------------+-------------------+-------------------
| Local time | |
Meridian | compared with | Boundaries of | Name of time.
Standard.| Greenwich time. | Sections. |
----------+-----------------+-------------------+-------------------
60° W. | 4 hours slow. | 52½° to 67½° W. | Atlantic.
75° W. | 5 “ “ | 67½° to 82½° W. | Eastern.
90° W. | 6 “ “ | 82½° to 97½° W. | Valley or Central.
105° W. | 7 “ “ | 97½° to 112½° W. | Mountain.
120° W. | 8 “ “ | 112½° to 127½° W. | Pacific.
From which it is readily seen we have but five instead of over fifty
standards as heretofore; and that the time of any place can not vary
more than thirty minutes from its own local time.
It is proposed that places located between the meridians given in the
column headed “Boundaries of Sections,” shall adopt the time named in
the same line in the next right hand column headed “Name of Time;” for
example, places located between the meridians 67½ and 82½ west will
adopt “Eastern” time, which is the local time of the 75th meridian, and
is five hours slower than Greenwich and eight minutes 12.09 seconds
faster than Washington time. It is not supposed, however, that this
will be done as exactly as laid down in the table; for a railroad may
be located principally in one section and extend a short distance
into another; in which case it would not be worth while to change the
standard for the short part. Thus, the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and St.
Louis Railway has its eastern terminus in Pittsburgh, something over
100 miles east of the Central section, in which the main body of the
road lies; and this road adopts Central time throughout its whole
extent. In like manner, San Antonio and Austin, Texas, are both in
the “Mountain” section, but will probably prefer to adopt “Central”
time and be respectively thirty-three and thirty-one minutes slower,
than to adopt “Mountain” time and be respectively twenty-seven and
twenty-nine minutes faster than their local time; and this for the
obvious reason that their business connections are much more extensive
with the Central than the Mountain region. But these cases do not in
the least interfere with the integrity of the general scheme. The
minute-hands of all properly regulated time-pieces will always indicate
the _same minute_, and all “times” can be estimated by the addition
or subtraction of _entire hours_. And in this lies the beauty and
simplicity of the device.
With great unanimity the railroads of the United States, and most of
the principal cities of the Union have already and without a “jar”
adjusted their business to this new basis; and it is to be presumed
that as soon as the advantages are fully understood, some cities that
are now hesitating will fall into line. The fact is, that while the
adoption of the new plan would produce a wonderful uniformity, there
would be a few cases in which the disturbance of local time seems
great; but it is not any greater than in hundreds of cases where the
old method is used. To exhibit the changes we give a few samples: In
New Orleans the time is fourteen seconds slower than local time; in
St. Louis, forty-nine seconds slower; in Denver, no difference; in
Philadelphia, 38.45 seconds slower; in New York, three minutes 58.38
seconds faster; in Baltimore, six minutes slower; in Washington City,
eight minutes twelve seconds slower; while in Kansas City the time is
eighteen minutes 21.7 seconds slower; in Pittsburgh, twenty minutes
three seconds faster; in Cincinnati, twenty-two minutes 18.58 seconds
faster; and in Omaha, twenty-four minutes slower than the respective
local times.