2/8 



SCIENCE. 



ifies the belief that, were the railroads in the rest of the 

 United States approached on this question, they would 

 combine to adopt the standards of time now used by a 

 few of the great centres of population. Thus, while it 

 was found quite impossible to unite the New England 

 roads upon Boston time, and while it would have been 

 equally impossible to cause the Boston roads to run on 

 New York time, it has proved highly satisfactory to allow 

 the current of travel, which always drifts toward the 

 nearest centre of population, to decide the matter. To 

 bring into use in a large section of the country two stand- 

 ards, where before there has been a dozen, is the first 

 step toward uniting the two into one ; and, in the writer's 

 opinion, it is only by a gradual amalgamation of different 

 local times that the final adoption of a few standards for 

 the whols country can be effected. As a rule, railway 

 corporations are more intelligent on this subject than the 

 town councils which are elected by popular suffrage. 

 They are also urged to encourage uniform time by their 

 own interests. They are under the direct influence of 

 State legislation, and the agreement of a number of rail- 

 roads can be made to influence the communities of the 

 regions traversed to use the railroad standard. Whether 

 the pressure of State legislation ought to be used is an 

 open question. It has been the writer's experience that 

 the railroads are quite willing to do their part without 

 recourse to any such means ; and with the average rail- 

 road official the fact that a service is to be enforced by 

 legislation prejudices him against it. 



The difficulties in the way of introducing a new stand- 

 ard would still further be reduced if the observatories 

 universally took care to distribute a time which should be 

 as accurate as human art could make it, and use only 

 such simple means of rendering it available as could 

 allow of no vitiation of the message over the time-tele- 

 graph wires. By so doing the observatories would, so 

 to speak, have a monopoly of the best article in the 

 market, for no private jewelers could hope to furnish the 

 local time with the precision obtained in a first-class 

 observatory, where every means is taken to insure accur- 

 acy. There is, however, little use in trying to supplant a 

 local time which is furnished by a respectable jeweler 

 who takes good care of a good clock, and who has ac- 

 quired the art of determining his time carefully, if the 

 new system of signals is not to be relied upon within a 

 single second. Unfortunately, the example set the time- 

 services of the country, by that under the direction of the 

 Naval Observatory at Washington, is not of the best ; 

 and, until it is realized by the proper officers that a divi- 

 sion of responsibility in the charge of delivering time- 

 messages results in the inaccuracy of the service to the 

 public, the services organized under the control of univer- 

 sities will occupy the first place for accuracy. 



The best, because the most unmistakable in its indica- 

 tions, of the means yet proposed for the distribution of a 

 public time consists in the ordinary telegraph receiving- 

 instrument, which is brought into circuit with the observ- 

 atory clock at stated intervals. The clock then automat- 

 ically beats in such a manner as to indicate the beginning 

 of the minute, or of the five minutes, which have been 

 agreed upon for the reception of the time by telegraph. 



Experience has shown that the average railroad em- 

 ployee or telegraph operator very quickly apprehends 

 this method of transmission, and, since the clock effects 

 the distribution automatically, if the signals are received 

 at all they must be exact. The very tempting method of 

 propelling the hands of clocks by electricity has nevei 

 been successfully applied over extended areas; and the 

 nearest approach to an accurate service from a distant 

 observatory takes place when the pendulum of the clock 

 at a distance from the observatory is moving in sympathy 

 with the observatory clock, through the action of induced 

 electrical currents. A very good example of this kind 

 may be seen in the Treasury clock, at Washington, 



where one of the Observatory clocks controls it, beat by 

 beat, through the intervention of a mile of telegraph-wire. 

 In this system, which is commonly known as Jones's 

 system, the interruption of the telegraphic circuit, by 

 storms or otherwise, does not cause the controlled clock 

 to stop, as in the systems above referred to ; but one can 

 never be sure, when the current is restored, that the 

 controlled clock will not have deviated during the stop- 

 page of its control ; and this method has not proved suc- 

 cessful where high accuracy is demanded, or the tele- 

 graph lines are liable to such interruptions as are com- 

 mon in our climate. This method, however, has found 

 considerable favor in England, and the writer had little 

 difficulty in using a clock, so controlled, at the end of a 

 well-protected wire four miles distant from the Observa- 

 tory of Harvard College. It was not, however, perfectly 

 reliable, and errors of from two to ten seconds were 

 sometimes found to exist in the controlled clock. 



Of the new method, which originated, we believe, in 

 Vienna, and has made its way as far westward as Paris, 

 of setting clocks by means of pneumatic tubes, there can 

 be a great deal said on the score of economy, when the 

 system is applied to large cities. It certainly would be a 

 popular idea to have the time laid on, as the water or 

 gas is, from a small pipe passing the door. The special 

 clock needed would be furnished and kept in order by 

 the small payment of a small annual rental. The expense 

 would be trifling as compared with any system yet sug- 

 gested of equal accuracy, and the field is so promising 

 that it would be strange it attempts were not soon made 

 in our large cities to occupy it. But such or any similar 

 systems for the local distribution of time will depend 

 upon the accurate and regular reception of the standard 

 from an observatory which may be several hundred miles 

 distant ; and for this principal service, as well as for the 

 railroads, the writer has already expressed the opinion 

 that the transmitting and receiving apparatus of the tele- 

 graph companies, in connection with an observatory 

 clock, affords the best, as well as the simplest, means. 



So much for the public distribution for commercial 

 and social purposes. There is another and extremely 

 important service, too much neglected in our country, in 

 behalf of the merchant marine. The Royal Observatory 

 at Greenwich justly considers the accurate dropping of 

 the time-balls on the English coast of almost equal im- 

 portance with the transmission of time over England. A 

 similar service should be undertaken by our own Naval 

 Observatory, and the suggestions embodied in Professor 

 Holden's report to the Secretary of the Navy*, on this 

 subject, receive the cordial support not only of the 

 officers of the navy and of the merchant marine, but of 

 those men of science whose attention has been called to 

 the lack of such a service at the important ports of Phi.- 

 adelphia, Baltimore, and San Francisco. 



Such a service is performed for the port of New York, 

 though not with the assurance of accuracy we have a 

 light to expect in such a Government work. The Obser- 

 vatory of Harvard College, in connection with the 

 United States Army Signal Service, drops a time-ball tor 

 the benefit of Boston Harbor, and perhaps there is no 

 one public signal of the Harvard Time Service which is 

 received with more public favor than this, not only by 

 the commanders of vessels lying in the harbor, but by 

 the people living on the surrounding highlands, and 

 numerous factories and institutions from which the signal 

 is visible. This signal owes its existence to the public 

 spirit shown by the Equitable Life Insurance Company, 

 of New York, in erecting the apparatus necessary upon 

 the top of their magnificent building. The time-balls in 

 Boston, New York, and Washington, have thoroughly 

 ingratiated themselves in the public favor. 



The cost of the construction of a time-ball of the 



* Report of the Secretary of the Navy, Second Session, Forty-fourth 

 Congi i 



