Tratis. N. V. Ac. Set. 



88 



Jan. 



time for the whole city ; and the time of some city on its line is ems- 

 ployed as the standard time for railroads. The time adopted by a 

 railroad soon becomes the standard for all cities along its line, and, 

 shortly, local time, in its astronomical or true sense, is disregarded. 



Prof. Cleveland Abbe has shown, in his report to the Metrological 

 Society, that there are now used in this country, in operating railroads, 

 seventy-five different standards of time. " Some of these are in error 

 about a minute or moie. Many do not differ among themselves more 

 than one or two minutes. Some of them are furnished with uniform 

 high accuracy by established observatories, others are furnished by 

 jewelers employed by the railroads, and many are of very doubtful re- 

 liability."'" 



The scien'ific men of the country have long felt that there are too- 

 many standards, and that there is no system used in adopting them. 



The subject of the " Simplification of Time Standards " was taken up 

 in 1875 by a Committee of the American Metrological Society. 



This Committee, adopting a system of Prof. Benj. Pierce, recom- 

 mended (in 1879) : First. — That the number of standards of time be 

 diminished, and second, that there be no more than one standard for 

 every hour of longitude west of the meridian of Greenwich. 



The relations of the proposed standard meridians, to Greenwich (in 

 longitude and time), to true local times of places adopting the stand- 

 ards, and the designation of the proposed standard times, are given in 

 the following table : 



Standard 

 Meridian 

 Geographical Section. west 



of 

 Greenwich 



Newfoundland, 

 New Brunswick, 

 Nova Scotia, 

 Canada, 



Standard 



Time 



slower 



than 



Greenwich 



Maine 

 to 



■ r 



Florida, ) 

 Ohio ) 



to ,- 



Alabama ) 

 Lower Lakes, 



Miss. Valley, 

 Missouri Valley, 

 Upper Lakes, 

 Texas, 



to'- 



75- 



H. 

 4- 



QO^ 



Rocky Mt. Region. 105 



Pacific States, ( 



British Columbia, \ ^^° 



6. o. o. \ 



7. o. o. -, 



Standard Time slower or faster 



than 



true "local times." 



Min. 



2Q slower than St. Johns, N.F. 



24 taster than St. John, N. B. 



14 faster than Halifax, N. S. 



15 slower than Quebec. 



18 (aster than Toronto. 



16 slower than Boston. 



3 slower than New York. 

 8 faster than Washington. 



19 faster than Charleston. 

 45 faster than Montgon.ery. 

 14 faster than Buffalo. 



30 faster than Detroit. 

 38 faster than Cincinnati. 



faster than New Orleans. 



1 taster than St. Louis. 

 12 faster than St. Paul. 



18 faster than Kansas City. 



19 fas'^er than Galveston. 

 10 slower than Chicago. 



o faster than Denver. 

 28 faster than Salt Lake City, 

 12 slower than San Diego. 



10 taster than San Francisco. 



11 faster fan Olympia. 



12 faster than Victoria. 



Designation of 



propo-ed 

 Standard Time. 



■East'rn Time 



- AtlanticTime 



r Valley Time. 



I 



J 



C Mount'n time 



r Pacific Time 



i 



