104 TIME-RECKONING. 
of absolute time which is part of Saturday in one place, is equally 
part of Friday and of Sunday in some other places east and west. 
It is a preconceived idea with many that there is a simultaneous 
Sunday over the earth, and that Christians in every meridian keep 
the Lord’s day at one and the same time. Facts, however, establish 
that this is a mistake. From its first commencement to its final 
ending, the Sunday extends over 48 hours. Indeed, if we take into 
account the remarkable circumstance mentioned with regard to 
Alaska and the Philippine Islands, Sunday has been discovered to 
run over some 55 hours, The same may be said of any day in the 
week ; and as a consequence we have, taking the whole globe into 
view, Saturday and Monday running over the intervening Sunday to 
overlap each other about seven hours. We have in fact as a constant 
occurrence, portions of three consecutive days co-existent. 
From the fact that not only are the hours of the day different in 
every meridian, but that different days are constantly in progress on 
the face of the globe, it is a difficult matter under our present system 
of reckoning to assign relatively the hour and day when events take 
place. We may learn of an occurrence, and the time assigned will 
be correct in the meridian of the locality. Everywhere else it will 
be inaccurate. Indeed, if the fact of the occurrence be transmitted 
over the world by telegraph, it may, in some places, be recorded on 
different days.* If the incident occurs at the close of a month, or a 
year, it may actually take place in two different months, or two 
distinct years. 
Under our present system it is quite possible for two events to 
take place several hours apart, the first and older occurring in the 
new year in one locality ; the second, although the more recent in 
absolute time, falling, in another locality, within the old year. -The 
same may be said of events that occur during the period which 
elapses when one century merges into another. In one part of the 
globe the same event may transpire in the nineteenth century, while 
in another it falls within the twentieth century. 
These explanations set forth the inconveniences and the ambiguity 
inseparable from the ordinary mode of reckoning. The system, 
besides being unscientific and inconvenient, must, as time rolls on, 
inevitably lead to countless mistakes. In fact, unless the geographical 
* TIME AND THE TELEGRAPH.—A message dated Simla, 1.55 a.m. Wednesday, was received in 
London at 11.47 p.m. on Tuesday. As the clerk said, with pardonable confusion, “ Why, this 
message was sent off to-morrow.”-—Times. 
