322 SCIENTIFIC RECORD FOR 1882. 



extent of tlie United States renders a single time impracticable, for by 

 the hour at any i>lace is only sought an expression for the relative posi- 

 tion of the sun in regard to that place. At the noon of any locality the 

 sun is on its meridian ; at 1 o'clock it is one hour past the meridian; at 

 midnight it is on the lower meridian, or just under the feet, and at 1 

 o'clock at night it is one hour past the lower meridian. All this is very 

 elementary, and is known to every one. 



"'By local time man must live, move, and have his being. Other 

 standard for his daily avocations is chimerical, fit for speculation, but 

 utterly impracticable. Sailors have for a long time kept on board ship, 

 for their practical j)urposes, two times — namely, local time, for the daily 

 uses of life, and the time of the national mei idian, for astronomical pur- 

 poses. This is Greenwich, Paris, Pulkova, or other, according to nation- 

 ality. This arrangement at sea is in constant use by a community far 

 from a learned one, according to shore standards. The system must b& 

 plain and practical to landsmen, since it is plain and practiced by sea- 

 men. 



'"The plan of time zones seems to me a plan for legalizing diver- 

 sity. It is against diversity that the country protests, as applied to rail- 

 road service. Two neighbors, sei>arated by a fence, may live in differ- 

 ent zones, or two villages near one another may have different "zones 

 and different legal times, in which case business will be carried on be- 

 tween them with more difficulty than with natural time, by which people 

 dwelling near one another will have, substantially, agreement in their 

 watches. Two railroads on different sides of a river may have different 

 zones, and trains collide for want of agreement. Except in towns of 

 some size, no one would know his zone, for the zones cannot be marked. 

 The State lines are too irregular in shape to serve for a guide, nor have 

 we custom-houses on the borders to inform travelers of the name of the 

 State into which they enter. 



" ' Learned societies may recommend artificial time for the use of man, 

 but it is to be apprehended that ^he community may refuse to accept 

 it. When the laborer, who has worked from sunrise until noon, is 

 gravely told that noon comes at 1 o'clock, will he not object ? In short, 

 men will continue to keep natural time for their daily uses, whatever 

 different practice conventions may recommend. 



" 'In conclusion, I beg leave to recommend that in the railroad guides 

 the time of Washington, the national meridian of the United States, be 

 published opposite to the movements of through trains, leaving, the 

 trains to run on Boston time, or Ogden, or San Francisco, or such other 

 time as the directors may prefer. This ]dan invades no right now en- 

 joyed ; it changes no i)ractice ; it only adds to the tables a few columns 

 of figures. 1 would also recommend that the clocks at railroad stations 

 be furnished with two sets of hands, gilt hands for Washington time, 

 and black hands for local time. These hands, separated by a constant 

 difference equal to the differences of longitude, will always show at a 

 glance the time required, whether local or Washington.'" 



The second paper referred to, is an ess.ay read by Dr. Ulbricht, at a» 

 convention of engineers, which met at Dresden last winter, and is as 

 follows : 



" In most of the European countries the inconvenience of various local 

 times has been partially done away with, by accepting the true time at 

 the capital city for the standard time for the rest of the country, as has 

 been partly done by the railroad companies in the United States; whole 



