ASTRONOMY. 323 



trains arrive at and leave the intermediate stations by Xew York or 

 Chicago time. 



" Dr. Ulbricht then spoke with approbation of the ingenious plan 

 proposed by President Barnard, of Columbia College, New York, at the 

 convention held recently at Cologne to discuss some of the debated 

 points of international law. President Barnard's scheme is to have 

 the earth divided by twenty-four meridian lines corresponding to the 

 number of hours in a solar day, and to have the inhjibitants of each 

 spot on the globe reckon time by the true time at the nearest meridional 

 line. By this plan, all places would register minutes and seconds sim- 

 ultaneously, all over the world, the name of the hour only being differ- 

 ent at each meridian line. If this much could be secured, it would be 

 a vast improvement on the present irregular system, but it would neces- 

 sitate perfect standards and exceedingly careful and accui ate distribu- 

 tion of time from the appointed centers or standard clocks. 



"The 'time ball' on the Wartberg (a mountain near Heilbrunn), 

 which was set up more than a hundred years ago by that many-sided 

 genius, Goethe, is a primitive mode of distributing time from a cential 

 station to the surrounding stations, and modern science is rapidly per- 

 fecting this system, so that the complete unison between all the clocks 

 of a country is only a question of t'ime. 



"The pneumatic system gives unqualified satisfaction in Vienna, 

 where it has been thoroughly tested, and other places are introducing 

 it; but the most infallibly accurate means for distributing time either 

 long or short distances, is electricity. Simultaneous action in clocks, 

 no matter how widely separated they may be, is insured by the Hipp 

 system of electric communication, or the Jones system, which is in suc- 

 cessful operation at Greenwich, Berlin, and several other places. In 

 this latter system the pendulums receive their impulse by the opening 

 and closing of the electric circuit, so that all have a simultaneous vibra- 

 tion. Of course, this system makes no allowance for the difference 

 between the time of different localities. 



"The Siemens and Halske electrical clocks are provided with a 

 simple little apparatus which allows the minutes and seconds to be re- 

 corded on each clock in unison with the central clock, but as the hour 

 strikes it moves the hands back or forward to the place where they 

 belong according to the true time of the place. 



"The system invented by Dr. Ulbricht himself, and in use in many 

 of the principal depots in Germany, requires the pendulum-rod to be 

 somewhat shorter than usual, so that the clock will gain a trifle each 

 hour. This is remedied by an automatic arrangement that, as the hour 

 strikes, stops the motion of the pendulums in all the secondary clocks 

 until the center clock has caught up with them, when all vibrate again 

 in unison. 



"President Barnard's proposition for 'cosmopolitan time,' as he calls 

 it, comprehended still further changes in the system now in use, which 

 can be briefly summed up as follows: After having decided upon the 

 location of the twenty-four meridional lines, the whole world should 

 reckon time from a certain one of these lines. For general convenience 

 (and to avoid showing undue partiality to any special country, probably), 

 President Barnard suggests the meridian passing through Behring 

 Strait and the Pacific Ocean, for the starting point, and the time mid- 

 night. 



" The hours of the day should be counted from one to twenty-four, 

 inclusive, doing away with the unnecessary annoyance of dividing the 

 solar day into p. m. and A. M. He suggests also that the hours might 



