RECKONING FOR THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 49 
habitants of every individual locality in whatever longitude will daily have an oppor- 
tunity of regulating time by the great natural standard of measurement. The longitude 
of the locality being known, at mean solar passage the time will, invariably and precisely, 
agree with the longitude. Conversely, the time being known, the longitude of the place 
will be in strict agreement with time at the moment of mean solar passage. 
A reference to the plate will make it clear that the solar passage will be the invari- 
able index of Cosmic Time. Fig. 1 shows the relative position of sun and earth at the 
initial instant of the Cosmic Day, that is, at the moment of mean solar passage on the 
Antiprime Meridian adopted by the Washington Conference. 
Fig. 2. Gives the position when the earth has made a sixth of a revolution and four 
hours have elapsed. The solar passage at this stage is on the four-hour meridian. 
Fig. 8. When the earth has made a third of a revolution and occupied a period of 
eight hours, the solar passage occurs on the eight-hour meridian. 
Fig. 4 When the earth has made half a revolution and twelve hours have elapsed, 
the solar passage is at this stage on twelve-hour or Prime Meridian. 
Similarly for every other meridian, and thus the precise relation between Cosmic 
Time and longitude is definitely established. 
It may be said that Cosmic or Universal Time is accepied in science, but its adoption 
in ordinary life can only be gradually and perhaps with difficulty effected. It is not to 
be looked for that a change so marked, involving a reyolution of thought in some of 
our social customs, can be speedily introduced, however desirable it may be in the 
public interest. There is a class of men who habitually express their contempt for what 
they designate as ‘‘ new-fangled notions” and who refuse to go out of sight of old land- 
marks. The usages which we desire to supersede are certainly old, for they took their 
origin when our civilization was young. In those days it was a dogma that the earth had 
a flat surface, but as the belief that the earth is a plane is no longer invested with the 
authority of a truth, we may venture to call in question the theory that each locality on 
its surface possesses an independent stream of time and is called upon to defend and 
maintain it. The human race is no longer confined within a narrow area. It has over- 
spread the surface of the earth ; in the old and new worlds it has grown, in some portions 
of their extent it is still growing, from an infantile condition to a state of manhood. Are 
we not yet able to look beyond one individual horizon, and enlarge our range of vision so 
as to include a system which will satisfy the requirements, not of a locality, but of the 
whole globe ? 
We are living in an age of intellectual and social progress, when men are less fettered 
than our fathers were by the restraints of custom. On the continent of North America 
extraordinary progress has already been made by an essentially practical people towards 
the adoption of a complete reform in time-reckoning. What is known as the Standard 
Hour system, in itself in complete harmony with the principles of Cosmic Time, has been 
in common use for nearly three years, and it is generally recognized as an incalculable 
benefit to the whole community. 
Throughout the United States and Canada, we have outgrown the notion of isolating 
each locality by compelling it to observe a separate time notation. The Continent is 
divided into zones, each zone having the same time throughout its extent, based on a 
meridian which is a multiple of fifteen degrees from the Prime Meridian. Consequently 
Sec. III., 1886. 7. 
