356 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 



for reforming our time-system will not Lave attained its object until 

 this end be accomplished. 



Those persons who have been in the habit of finishing their daily work 

 at 6 p. m. under the 24-hour system will end it at 18. Those who re- 

 tired to rest at 10 or 11 p. m. will seek their beds at 22 or 23. The idea 

 that solar noon and 12 o'clock are one and inseparable has already been 

 set aside throughout the United States and Canada ; only on five me- 

 ridians—the GOth, 75th, 90th, 105th, and 120th— is it held to be 12 o'clock 

 at the mean solar passage. In all other longitudes throughout Korth 

 America the identity between solar noon and 12 o'clock has practically 

 been swept away. 



These modifications in the time reckoning must tend to remove the 

 idea that there is some necessary connection between the numbers of 

 the hours and the position of the sun in each local firmament. The 

 force of habit has heretofore associated noon with 12 o'clock, but in due 

 time it will become obvious to every one that the hour of the sun's pas- 

 sage at any one locality may with as much propriety be distinguished 

 by any one of the twenty-four numbers as by the now generally 

 received number 12. So soon as this new idea comes generally to be ac- 

 cepted, so soon as it is understood that the numbers of the hours are arbi- 

 trary and conventional, it will not be difficult to take the final step in 

 time reform and entirely supersede the present system by a notation 

 which will give to mankind throughout the world simultaneous dates 

 and hours and minutes. 



The final step may appear to involve serious changes in much which 

 concerns every individual, but it is not to be supposed that it will in 

 any way interfere with the periods for labor, sleep, meals, or any ordi- 

 nary usage. The one change will be in the numbers of the hours. In 

 social affairs the regulating influence of daylight and darkness will 

 always, as now, be paramount. The terms "noon "and "midnight" 

 will continue to preserve their present meaning, although the numbers 

 of the hours at which these periods occur will vary in each case accord- 

 ing to longitude. Each separate meridian will have its own midnight 

 hour distinguished from the midnight hours of other meridians by a 

 distinctive number. So also with the noon hour, which, as already 

 stated, will invariably agree with the longitude of the j)lace. It is the 

 midnight hour in each locality which will constitute the initial time- 

 point to regulate the legal hours for opening and closing banks, registry, 

 and other irablic offices. The midnight hour may be arbitrarily chosen 

 and be established by statute as circumstances may demand. It will be 

 held to be the local zero to govern the hours of business, working hours, 

 the hours for attendance at church, at school, and at places of amuse- 

 ment, and generally to regulate all the social affairs of life. While the 

 seven week days will practically remain unchanged in every longitude, 

 the simple expedient of numbering the hours so that everj'where they 

 will correspond with Cosmic Time will result in securing the general 

 uniformity to be desired. Thus it will be obvious that in all matters 



