100 TIME-RECKONING. 



where geographical circumstances render necessary the use of a mul- 

 tiplicity of standards. 



The railway system is the principal agent in the developing of 

 the difficulties referred to, and the still further extension of steam 

 communications in great continental lines is forcing the subject 

 on public attention. Canada supplies a good illustration of what is 

 occurring. The railways built and projected will extend from the 

 eastern coast of Newfoundland on the Atlantic, to the western coast 

 of British Columbia on the Pacific, embracing about seventy-five 

 degrees of longitude. Every Canadian city has its own time. In- 

 numerable settlements are now being formed throughout the country 

 ultimately to be traversed by railways ; and in a few years, scores of 

 populous towns and cities will spring up in the now uninhabited 

 teri'itories between the two oceans. Each of these places will have 

 its own local time ; and the difiference between the clocks at the two 

 extremes of Canada will be fully five hours. The difficulties which 

 will ultimately arise from this state of things are apparent. They are 

 already in some degree felt, they are year by year increasing, and 

 will at no distant day become seriously inconvenient. This is the 

 case not in Canada alone, but all the world over. 



Again, there is a difficulty with regard to the determination of not 

 only the precise hour, but even the day, of any occurrence under our 

 present system of reckoning. 



Persons who inhabit different sections of the earth, differ from 

 each other in their reckoning of the day. At one place it is noon, at 

 another it is midnight ; at a third it is sunrise, at a fourth it is sun- 

 set. In consequence we have the elements of confusion, which involve 

 in some cases the mistake of a whole day. 



People even living in the same meridian may diflfer a day in their 

 usual reckoning of time, according as the countries they inhabit have 

 been colonized from the one side or the other of the globe. There 

 are instances in the Pacific Ocean where islands almost adjacent 

 reckon by different days of the month and week ; a circumstance 

 calculated to pi'oduce much confusion when intercourse becomes 

 frequent. 



In Alaska the days of the week and month were one day in 

 advance of those in the adjacent colony of British Columbia, indeed 

 of the whole of America. On the advent of citizens of the United 

 States a few years ago, when that territory was transferred by Russia, 



