RECKONING FOR THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. AS 
: 
men of business ; that it produces confusion and frequently results in loss of life, and 
leads to other difficulties ; that under the circumstances which have followed the substi- 
tution of steam for animals as a motive power, the ancient usages as retained in our nota- 
tion of hours and dates are generally inappropriate. Moreover, the use of the telegraph 
in our daily lives, practically subjects the whole surface of the globe to the observation 
of civilized communities in each individual locality. It leaves no interval of time between 
widely separated places proportionate to their distances apart. It practically brings into 
close contact the opposite sides of the earth where daylight and darkness prevail at the 
same period. By this agency, noon, midnight, sunrise, sunset, and the whole range of 
intermediate gradations of the day, are all observed and recognized at the same moment. 
Thus in matters out of the domain of local importance, confusion is developed and all 
count of time is thrown into multiplied disorder. 
Again, under the usages now observed, a day is assumed to begin twelve hours before, 
and end twelve hours after, the sun passes the meridian of any place. As the globe is 
constantly revolving on its axis, a fresh meridian is every moment coming under the 
sun ; as a consequence a day is always beginning somewhere and always ending some- 
where. Hach meridian around the circumference of the sphere has its own day, and 
therefore it results that there are, during every diurnal revolution of the earth, an infinite 
number of local days all beginning within a space of twenty-four hours and each con- 
tinuing twenty-four hours. These days overlap each other, but they are as perfectly dis- 
tinct as they are infinite in number. While a day is nominally 24 hours in length, as a 
matter of fact 48 hours elapse between the first beginning and the last ending of every 
week day. Taking the whole globe into our view, Sunday actually commences in the 
middle of Saturday and lasts until the middle of Monday. Again Saturdays runs into the 
middle of Sunday, while Monday begins 24 hours before Sunday comes to an end and con- 
tinues 24 hours after Tuesday commences. Similarly for all the days of the week, as time 
is now reckoned. Except those on the same meridian, there are no simultaneous days on 
the earth’s surface, and as the different days are always in the various stages of advance- 
ment, discrepancies and errors must necessarily result in assigning the precise period 
when an event takes place. The telegraph may give the exact local time of an occurrence, 
but the time so given must be in disagreement with local time on every other meridian 
around the globe. An event occurring on any one day may on the instant be announced 
in a locality where the time is that of the previous day, and in another locality where 
the time is that of the following day. About the period when the month or year passes 
into another month or year, an occurrence may actually take place, according to our 
present system of reckoning, in two different months or in two different years; indeed, 
there can be no certainty whatever with regard to time, unless the precise geographical 
position be specified as an essential fact in connection with the event described. Under 
these circumstances it must be conceded that our present system of notation is most 
defective ; certainly it is unscientific, and possesses every element of confusion: it pro- 
duces a degree of ambiguity which, as railways and telegraphs become greatly mul- 
tiplied, will lead to complications in social and commercial affairs, to errors in chro- 
nology, to litigation in connection with succession to property, insurance, contracts, and 
other matters; and in view of individual and general relationships it will undoubtedly act 
as a clog to the business of life and prove an increasing hindrance to human intercourse. 
