TIME-RECKONING. 117 
It is obvious that to retain the old custom of reckoning hours, and 
at the same time secure the advantages of the cosmopolitan or non- 
local system, dual time-keepers, but not necessarily two distinct sets 
of time-keepers, would be required. This object is attained by having 
two dials to the one time-keeper, placed, in the case of a watch, back 
to back, or in the case of a stationary clock, side by side, as in Fig. 2 ; 
Fig. 2, 
Locau TIME. COSMOPOLITAN TIME. 
the instruments being constructed so that the same wheel-work would 
move the hands of both dials. The figure No. 2 is suggested for a 
stationary clock ; the night half of the dials are shaded. 
The dial with the Roman numerals is designed for local time, while 
the lettered dial is for cosmopolitan or non-local time, to be used in 
connection with railways, steamboats and telegraphs, and as a record 
of passing historical events. 
It is obvious that if clocks and watches were constructed on these 
principles, the difficulties and inconveniences which have been alluded 
to, and which seem inseparable from the present system, would be 
fully met. Assuming the scheme to be in general use: while local 
time would be employed for all domestic and ordinary purposes, 
cosmopolitan time would be used for all purposes not local; every 
telegraph, every steam line, indeed every communication on the face 
of the earth, would be worked by the same standard. Every traveller 
having a good watch, would carry with him the precise time that he 
would find observed elsewhere. Post meridian could never be mis- 
taken for ante meridian. Railway and steamboat time-tables would 
be simplified and rendered intelligible, and no one can claim that 
such now is the rule. 
