762 



TIME, STANDARD AND COSMOPOLITAN. 



minutes slower than Boston time. Sometimes 

 three or four standards of time competed with 

 each other in the same city, as in Hartford, 

 Conn., where some of the trains left on Boston 

 time and others on New York time, while the 

 local time was used in the city at large. The 

 same embarrassment had already been felt, 

 though on a much smaller scale, in England ; 

 and, to remedy it, on Jan. 13, 1848, all the 

 clocks in the kingdom were set to conform to 

 Greenwich time; and they have been regu- 

 lated by that standard ever since. 



The question of introducing a uniform sys- 

 tem in the United States was discussed for 

 several years before a practicable plan was 

 found. It was agreed that the adoption of a 

 single standard for the whole United States 

 would be impracticable, because it would in- 

 troduce too many and too great discrepancies 

 between the time by the clock and the solar 

 time, and would be repugnant to the habits 

 and convenience of the people. Four stand- 

 ards were accordingly proposed, so adjusted as 

 to be one hour apart, and to differ by exact 

 hours from the time at Greenwich ; the effect 

 of which would be, that the only difference 

 should be in the numbering of the hours, while 

 the numbering of the minutes and seconds 

 should be the same at all places using the 

 standards as well as at all places using Green- 

 wich time. The details of a plan embracing 

 these principles were worked up by Mr. W. F. 

 Allen, Secretary of the General and Southern 

 Railway Time Conventions ; and at the meet- 

 ings of the time conventions, held in New York 

 and Chicago in April, 1883, the following reso- 

 lutions were adopted : 



1. That all roads now using Boston, New York, 

 Philadelphia, Baltimore, Toronto, Hamilton, or Wash- 

 ington time as standard, based upon meridians east 

 of those points, or adjacent thereto, shall be governed 

 by the 75th meridian or Eastern time (four minutes 

 slower than New York time ). 



2. That all roads now using Columbus, Savannah, 

 Atlanta, Cincinnati, Louisville, Indianapolis, Chicago, 

 Jefferson City, St. Paul, or Kansas City time, or 

 standards based upon meridians adjacent thereto, 

 shall be run by the 90th meridian time, to be called 

 Central time, one hour slower than Eastern time and 

 nine minutes slower than Chicago time. 



3. That west of the above-named section the roads 

 shall be run by the 105th and the 120th meridian 

 times, respectively, two and three hours slower than 

 Eastern time. 



4. That all changes from one hour standard to an- 

 other shall be made at the termini of roads or at the 

 ends of divisions. 



This scheme was received favorably by most 

 of the railroads whose time would be regulated 

 by tfiat of the Eastern and Central meridians, 

 and was put in operation by the principal rail- 

 roads of the New England States on October 

 7th, and, with few exceptions, by those of the 

 other States east of the Rocky mountain re- 

 gion on November 18th. The local time at 

 most of the towns and cities was also made to 

 conform to the new standards, the greatest al- 

 teration in clocks required to do so being about 

 half an hour. The following table gives a gen- 



eral view of the relations in round minutes of 

 the standard meridians to Greenwich and to 

 the true local times of the places adopting 

 them: 



The belt of country situated 7i on either 

 side of a standard meridian generally (with 

 such exceptions as the peculiar relations of cer- 

 tain places may make it expedient to recognize) 

 is expected to adopt the time of that meridian. 



Related to the subject of Standard time for 

 the United States is that of Cosmopolitan time, 

 or the selection of a uniform meridian and 

 standard of time for the whole world. A scheme 

 for an international system of time-reckoning, 

 embodying this principle, was proposed inde- 

 pendently by the Hon. Sandford Fleming, Chan- 

 cellor of Queen's University, Toronto, and Prof. 

 Cleveland Abbe, of the United States Signal 

 Service, and was presented by President Bar- 

 nard, of Columbia College, to the International 

 Association for the Reform and Codification 

 of the Law of Nations, at its meeting in Co- 

 logne, in August, 1881. It recommended that 

 24 standard meridians be fixed upon, distant 

 from each other 15 or one hour each in longi- 

 tude, to which only the arbitrary local times 

 kept at all places on the earth's surface shall 

 be referred ; that the prime meridian, by refer- 

 ence to which all the other hour meridians 

 shall be determined, be that of 180 or twelve 

 hours from the meridian of Greenwich ; a me- 

 ridian which passes near Behring strait and 

 lies almost wholly on the ocean; that the di- 

 urnal change of count in the monthly calendar 

 begin when it is midnight on this prime meri- 

 dian, and take place for the several meridians 

 successively : that the hour of the day at each 

 place be reckoned by the standard meridian 

 nearest to it in longitude, it being reckoned as 

 twelve o'clock, noon, at the moment the mean 



