580 Transactions. — Chemistry and Physics. 



human requirements, and does not by any means agree with 

 the time as indicated by the sun. 



The above facts are no doubt very famihar to many mem- 

 bers, but, as most of the objections which have been urged 

 against my system of seasonal time depend on the assump- 

 tion that the ordinary time we employ is an unchangeable 

 actuality existing in nature with which we must not and can- 

 not in any way interfere, it has been specially necessary to 

 emphasize the fact that our time is merely an artificial 

 standard, which might be further adjusted if by so doing it 

 could be made more subservient to our requirements. 



Although, as above stated, during the early part of Novem- 

 ber our clocks point to 12 when the sun is actually twenty- 

 five minutes past the meridian, few people are even aware of 

 the fact, and certainly no one suffers any inconvenience from 

 it. The direct effect is, however, to make^the mornings fifty 

 minutes longer than the afternoons. If the alteration sug- 

 gested in this paper were given effect to, the clock would point 

 to 2 when the sun was on the meridian ; and I do not think 

 it would cause much more inconvenience than the present 

 adjustment of twenty-five minutes. 



It will thus be seen that my scheme of " seasonal 

 time" is only equivalent to an "equation of time " of two 

 hours, to be added on to the present standard time on the 1st 

 October, and to be deducted on the 1st March. When it is 

 remembered that, under the system at present in use in New 

 Zealand, adjustments amounting to nearly half an hour are 

 made without the general public being even aware of the fact, 

 I think it will be agreed that my proposed adjustment of two 

 hours is not likely to cause any very great amount of incon- 

 venience. 



For the first two or three days after the alteration in spring 

 the mornings would probably seem rather short, although, 

 even then, they would be very little shorter than they are in 

 midwinter under the present system, and, owing to the rapid 

 lengthening of the day, they would very soon substantiaUy 

 increase.^ Any shght disadvantages felt in the mornings 

 would, however, be more than compensated by the great 

 increase in daylight in the evenings, as, under the new system 

 of counting the hours, the daylight would last until after 

 8 o'clock p.m. Both mornings and evenings would continue 

 to lengthen out until midsummer, at w4iich time it would 

 be daylight up till 10.30 p.m. As soon as the dayhght be- 

 came too short again in the mornings — which would occur 

 towards the end of February — the clocks would be put back 

 two hours at midnight on the 28th, and for the succeeding 

 seven months the present time system would again be in 

 force. 



