TIME-RECKONING. 119 
To render the dial plates of time-pieces perfectly intelligible in 
each place when used for local time, the expedient shown in Fig. 3 
might be adopted. 
LOvAL AND COSMOPOLITAN TIME. 
Here the noon and midnight letters are easily distinguished, and 
that portion of the day which includes the hours of darkness cannot 
be mistaken. These or similar expedients could be employed with 
the same effect in the clocks and watches used in every place on 
the surface of the earth. 
It would, however, be vain to assume that the present system could 
be at once abolished and disregarded. It becomes expedient, therefore, 
to consider how the advantages of the scheme of cosmopolitan time could 
be secured in everyday life. It is perfectly obvious that the present 
system cannot be overlooked ; and that, although it may not be always 
maintained, it must for some time be continued. We must therefore 
look for some means by which the new notation may be employed in 
conjunction with the old, until the latter would fall into disuse. 
It may be said that local time is almost always more or less 
arbitrarily established. Our clocks but rarely indicate true local 
time, and the most perfect time-pieces are for the greater portion 
of the year either faster or slower than the sun. In fact, correct 
ordinary time-keepers must necessarily at certain seasons be about 
15 minutes faster or slower than true solar time, and no inconveni- 
ence whatever is found to result. The adoption of Irish time in 
England, or English time in Ireland, could not be felt in civil affairs. 
The difference between English and Irish time, as arbitrarily estab- 
lished, is twenty-five minutes; but in the west of Ireland local 
mean time is forty minutes, and solar time sometimes fifty-five 
minutes behind English time (Greenwich). Greenwich time-is used 
