TIME-RECKONING. 111 
different customs, but the most common practice on shipboard is to 
divide the 24 hours into six equal portions called “ watches,” and 
these again into eight equal parts known as “bells,” and numbered 
from 1 to 8. Thus, the whole day is sub-divided into 48 equal parts. 
The period of time called a “watch” is four hours in length, the 
reckoning being as follows : 
From noon to 4 p.m., the afternoon watch. 
“* 4p.m. to 8 p.m, the dog watches (from 4 to 6 being the 
first dog watch; from 6 to 8 being the second dog watch). 
** 8 p.m. to midnight, the first (night) watch. 
** midnight to 4 a.m., the middle (or second night) watch. 
« 4a.m. to 8a.m., the morning watch. 
“* 8 a.m., to noon, the ferenoon watch. 
This division into watches has a remarkable similarity to the prac- 
tice followed by the Jews before the captivity. They divided the 
night into three watches, the first lasting till midnight, the middle 
watch lasting till cock-crow, the morning watch lasting until sunrise. 
From what bas been set forth, it would appear that the sub- 
divisions of the day have not been less varied than the computations 
of the day itself. Man has reckoned the day to begin at sunrise, at 
sunset, at noon, at midnight, at twilight, at one hour before mid- 
night, at six hours before midnight, and at six hours before noon. 
He has divided it in a great vaviety of ways, viz.: First, into two, 
four, twelve, twenty-four and one hundred and forty-four unequal 
parts ; second, into two, four, six, eight, twelve, twenty-four, forty- 
eight, sixty, ninety-six and into one hundred equal parts, without 
including the small sub-divisions of minutes and seconds. The com- 
mon practice at present with most civilized nations is to divide the 
day into two series of twelve hours each, a custom which corresponds 
very closely with that followed by the ancient Egyptians long before 
the Christian era. Thus, while we have made extraordinary advances 
in all the arts and sciences, and in their application to everyday life, 
we find ourselves clinging to a conventional and inconvenient mode 
of computing time; one not materially different from that practised 
by the Egyptians perhaps thirty centuries ago—a custom which an- 
swered every purpose when the world was young and its inhabited 
portion of narrow limit, but now indefensible in theory and incon- 
venient in practice. 
