STANDISH 



5524 



STANFORD 



because the sun has already passed them. It 

 is clear that every fraction of a degree of longi- 

 tude has a different true noon. 



A system of standard time was advocated to 

 remedy the confusion which arose from the dif- 

 ference in local sun time. The old system of 

 using sun, or local, time was especially annoy- 

 ing to travelers, for each railroad and city had 

 its own time. The result was that several rail- 

 roads meeting in a town might all use different 

 time systems; a traveler arriving at a terminus 

 at 11:00 o'clock might wish to take another 

 train at 10:30 and, because of differing time 

 standards might have to wait some time for his 

 outgoing train, or he might find his train al- 

 ready gone. 



The need of a standard for all parts of the 

 world led to the Prime Meridian Conference at 

 Washington, D. C., in 1882. As a result of this 

 conference the railroads of the United States 

 and Canada adopted in 1883 the system of 

 standard time. The railroads having adopted a 

 uniform system, it was not long before the use 

 of standard time was general in all lines of en- 

 terprise. In some rural communities the 

 change was slow, but once adopted it has al- 

 ways been retained because of its simplicity 

 and convenience. 



Under the system of standard time, the con- 

 tinent is divided into parallel zones, each of 

 which takes the sun ,time of practically its 

 central meridian. These central meridians dif- 

 fer from Greenwich longitude by exact multi- 

 ples of 15, this being the distance traveled by 

 the sun in one hour. Thus, the standard time 

 meridians in North America are 60, 75, 90, 

 105 and 120 W. Each zone extends 7 30' 

 east and the same distance west of the standard 

 meridian. For practical purposes, the limits 

 of the time zones are not rigid; for example, 

 if a town lies on both sides of a meridian, the 

 same time is kept in all parts of the town, and 

 particularly in the western part of the United 

 States the boundaries of zones are uneven, that 

 terminal points of great railroad systems may 

 have the same time as their eastward-stretching 

 divisions. 



The time of the 60th meridian is called At- 

 lantic, or Colonial time; that of the 75th is 

 Eastern; of the 90th, Central; of the 105th, 

 Mountain, and of the 120th, Pacific. These are 

 respectively four, five, six, seven and eight 

 hours earlier than Greenwich time. W.F.Z. 



Consult Allen's Short History of Standard Time. 



STANDISH, MILES, or MYLES (1584-1656), 

 an American colonist, born in Lancashire, Eng- 



land. What little education he possessed was 

 received in that shire, but most of his youth 

 was spent in the British army. Before 1603 he 

 had been appointed lieutenant, for bravery, 

 in the wars in Holland, and in 1609 he joined 



THE STANDISH GRAVE 

 At Duxbury, Massachusetts. 



the Puritan colony in that country. He was 

 not, however, a member of the church of the 

 Puritans, but simply their assistant in coloni- 

 zation plans and in training their militia. He 

 was one of the passengers on the Mayflower, 

 and immediately after its landing at Plymouth, 

 Mass., was chosen military captain of the 

 colony. 



His soldiers were few, but he made such a 

 brave show with them on several occasions that 

 the Indians greatly feared him. In 1622, when 

 the savages planned the destruction of both 

 Weymouth and Plymouth, Standish with only 

 eight men attacked their camp, killed their 

 two chiefs and put the assembled tribes to 

 flight. He had unusual business ability, and as 

 assistant to the governor and treasurer of the 

 colony secured reductions in British claims 

 that saved the colonists thousands of dollars. 

 The Courtship of Miles Standish, by Longfel- 

 low, who was a descendant of John Alden and 

 Priscilla Mullins, was not intended to be ac- 

 curate in every detail, but the main points of 

 the courtship as given in the poem are correct. 



Related Subjects. The article MAYFLOWER 

 includes a list of names of the Mayflower's pas- 

 sengers, in the exact language and spelling of 



Governor Bradford. 

 Alden, John 

 Bradford, William 

 Massachusetts Bay 

 Colony 



e, also : 

 Pilgrims 

 Plymouth Rock 

 Puritans 



STANFORD, LELAND (1824-1893), an Ameri- 

 can capitalist and philanthropist, who assisted 

 greatly in building the great West, was born at 

 Watervliet, N. Y. After a brief school course 



