SCIENCE. 



277 



health by destroying contagion, and purifying the air." 



This absurd statement appeared to give satisfaction to 

 the editor, who in his observations on the paper states : 

 " Information of this kind has long been wanted, and 

 those who have made the greatest bustle on the wonder- 

 ful advantages attending the use of the gas light have, 

 in this respect, been deficient." Possibly public opinion 

 was leaning towards the introduction of gas, for the 

 same editor, who in 1809 observed, on Mr. Murdock's 

 paper, that " the expense of the apparatus will always be 

 against its introduction on a small or middling scale," 

 now observes, in 18 10, "The statement of Mr. Cook 

 clearly proves the great advantages connected with those 

 lights, even on a small scale." 



It is not intended that the foregoing represents the 

 history of the introduction of gas for illuminating pur- 

 poses, but it gives phases of the question which are ot 

 interest at this moment, and shows that, as in the intro- 

 duction of the electric light for the same purpose, its de- 

 velopment was very gradual. It will be seen that the 

 economy of both gas and electricity for lighting purposes 

 was at first disputed, both were afterwards considered 

 only adapted for large buildings, then came the time 

 when each was shown to be flitted for domestic purposes. 

 The introduction of gas was considered "« bubble," and 

 when all other objections had been exhausted, scientific 

 testimony of that day finally stated that gas lighting would 

 raise the price of beef. When gas lighting was first 

 introduced, the idea of a great central manulactojy for a 

 city was not even dreamed of ; possibly at that time the 

 mere suggestion of such a design would have caused a 

 panic ; but that it was successfully accomplished we all 

 know. Gas was also first used for lighting large buildings, 

 but it required the genius of one man to invent a process 

 for its purification, so as to make it practical for general 

 illuminating purposes. 



The reader, with a knowledge of recent events, can 

 easily compare them with the facts here recorded re- 

 specting the early days of gas, and notice how history 

 has again repeated itself. 



First the possibility of using the electric light for 

 general illuminating purposes was denied, then its 

 adaptability for large buildings was admitted, and now 

 finally its use for domestic purposes is unquestioned. 



The economy of electric lighting was also assailed, but 

 the arguments are now getting stale. As each consumer 

 had at first to make his own gas, so the first idea of 

 electric lighting was coupled with the necessity on the part 

 of each consumer to own his own electric generator 

 and it was reserved for Edison to reform the whole sys- 

 tem, and put it on a practical footing. He first publicly ex- 

 hibited an electric lamp, that could compete with gas, and 

 that was adapted for the general illumination of houses by 

 electricity ; he first subdivided the electric current, and 

 thus demonstrated that its economic use was a possibility, 

 and he will be the first to achieve the final triumph of 

 establishing a central station for the manufacture of elec- 

 tricity and conducting it to the houses of the people. 



Capitalists combining with scientific experts and patent 

 pirates may endeavor to strip Edison of the honors due 

 to him, earned by patient and exhaustive study of the 

 question. That the electric light would eventually super- 

 sede gas for general illuminating purposes, no one 

 doubted, but that Edison by bringing to bear upon it 

 his great inventive powers, combined with almost 

 unlimited resources, has advanced the time for accom- 

 plishing the result by at least fifty years, will be ad- 

 mitted by all unprejudiced persons. J. M. 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF TIME. 

 By Professor Leonard Waldo. 



From time to time within the last twenty years there 

 have appeared articles in the public prints which indi- 

 cated an awakening and growing interest in the practica- 



bility of having wide sections of our country transact its 

 business and govern its social duties by a common time. 

 Within the last few years official reports from various 

 observatories, departments of the Government, scientific 

 societies and telegraph companies, have shown so consid- 

 erable a progress in the introduction of uniform systems 

 of time, and these systems have been so cordially received 

 by the communities interested, that there can be no doubt 

 that the country is ready to be divided into a few great 

 sections, each of which shall be governed by its own 

 standard, which shall bear some simple relation to the 

 standards governing the neighboring sections. 



The principal systems now in operation comprise the 

 United States Naval Observatory system, which extends 

 its distribution of Washington time to Chicago and the 

 West ; the Harvard and Yale systems, which distribute, 

 respectively, Boston and New York time over New Eng- 

 land ; the Alleghany Observatory system, which is con- 

 cerned chiefly with the Pennsylvania Railroad ; and the 

 more local services emanating from the observatories at 

 Albany, Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. Unfortu- 

 nately, except in New England, the distribution of the 

 time of an observatory has not always resulted in the 

 adoption of that time for general use, and it is often the 

 case that the local jewelers who are guardians of town 

 clocks, and local time as well, will convert the time re- 

 ceived by telegraph into their own local time, and thus 

 make it inconveniently different from the time in use in 

 any other city of their region. 



A railroad may or may not secure the adoption of its 

 own time in the cities along its' route. It is generally a 

 question as to which is the most important, the railroad 

 or the town. But certain it is that there is not an impor- 

 tant railroad in the country, outside of New England, 

 along which the commercial traveler may go without 

 having to compute the discrepancy between his watch 

 and the time kept by the business men at one-half of the 

 stopping-places. Thus it happens that, even where cities 

 are closely connected by large railroads, the people have 

 been dictated to by their jewelers regarding their standard 

 of time, when a little reflection shows that there is only 

 a very questionable advantage arising from having a local 

 time simply because the jewelers of the city insist on a 

 time which shall appeal to the local pride of their cus- 

 tomers. 



On the other hand, the disadvantage of having the 

 factory operatives begin work on railroad time and stop 

 on local time, because they gam ten minutes a day by 

 that sharp practice; the jostle and inconvenience in the 

 commercial interchange between two neighboring cities, 

 because the stock exchanges, business offices and the 

 banks, close with a difference of ten minutes ; the thous- 

 and engagements broken by the discrepancies of time — 

 all indicate the need of the adoption of such a common 

 time as already exists in the European countries. 



The writer has always felt that the railroads ought to 

 be the most influential means in securing uniformity. 

 They can be successfully appealed to for the financial 

 support which any accurate system demands, because 

 they have a direct and strong interest in the use of the 

 same time at every office and by every employee of their 

 roads. The superintendents, too, with whom the deci- 

 sion of such matters generally rests, are keenly alive to 

 anything which lessens the risk of accident, and they at 

 once appreciate the advantage of having the clocks of 

 intersecting roads, and of the towns through which their 

 roads pass, all indicate the same time. The control of a 

 telegraph wire for railroad business gives them the means 

 of transmitting time-signals, and in New England it is 

 the railroads which have virtually caused the all but uni- 

 versal acceptance of the Boston and New York standards 

 referred to. Outside of New England there has been 

 scarcely any concert of action among the railroads, and 

 there are about seventy different standards of time in use. 

 The result of the experiment in New England fairly just- 



