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STUART : THE SRIMANGAL EARTHQUAKE OF 8TH JULY 1918. 
much confusion and difficiilty throughout the enquiry. I refer to the 
matter of time. It is generally believed that the time kept in 
India is Indian standard time, and that, with the exception of a 
very few large towns such as Calcutta which keep their own local 
time, standard time is kept throughout India. This is not the 
case in Bengal and Assam. In these provinces every little place 
keeps its own time. It reports occurrences in its own time, and an 
enquiry has to be made in each case to ascertain what the difference 
is between this local time and Indian f?tandard time. This custom 
is so habitual that the newspaper reports give the local times without 
feeling the necessity to state that they are local time, or that the 
time kept in each place is different from that kept in neighbouring 
places, so that no co-ordination is possible between these times 
until each is converted into some standard time. 
It will perhaps make my meaning clearer if I quote examples. 
Barisal reported the earthquake as having been felt at 4-30 p.m., 
Faridpur at 4-20 p.m., Aijal at 4-30 p.m., without stating that the 
diiference between local and standard time is at Barisal 32 minutes, 
at Faridpur 30 minutes, and at Aijal 43 minutes. The quoting of 
local times leads to the erroneous impression that the earthquake 
shock had been felt at the same time in both Barisal and Aijal, and 
in Faridpur ten minutes earlier. The reduction of all these times 
to the same standard shows that the reported time of the earth- 
quake shock in Aijal was eleven minutes earlier than the reported 
time in Barisal, and three minutes earher than the reported time 
on Faridpur. An instance of the confusion arising from the use 
of local time was quoted in the preliminary report. A further 
instance which may be cited is the ofi&cial report of the earthquake 
in Assam in which the time of the earthquake was variously stated 
to be between 4-20 and 4-30 p.m., and the direction of the shock 
from west to east, or north-west to south-east. This report was 
compiled from a number of reported times, all of which were local 
times, and consequently the reported times made it appear that the 
shock had been travelling in a west to east, or north-west to south- 
east direction, instead of exactly the opposite direction. The 
reason being, of course, that owing to the variation of local time in 
an east-west direction, and the fact that the earthquake shock 
travels quicker than the rate of rotation of the earth's surface, the 
local times of the earthquake shock became earlier and earlier in an 
east-west direction. 
