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VOL. 13
DECEMBER 2, 1910
NO. 21
Standard Time.
Until within the last 25 years each
community used its own local time, but
as travel became more extensive it was
found quite inconveninent to alter one's
watch and system of time reckoning for
every few miles of travel east and west.
Accordingly, late in the year 1883 the
United Ststes adopted the present system
of standard time. It required months to
adjust matters, but this system went into
effect on March 13,' 1884, since which
time this system of standard time has
been adopted all over the country. It
was necessary to divide the whole
country into time belts of approximately
15 degrees in width.
"The "eastern" belt, extending as far
west as Buffalo, Pittsburg and a line
directly south, uses the time of the
seventy-fifth meridian, which is very
nearly that of the Atlantic coast cities.
Crossing into the "central" belt, watches
are set one hour earlier, as th time em
ployed1 is that of the ninetieth meridian,
six hours behind the Greenvvhich time.
Similarly "mountain" time uses the one
hundred and fifth meridian, seven hours
behind, and the "Pacific" belt adopts
the one hundred and twentieth meridian
time, just eight hours slower than that
of Greenwhich.
Standard time is uniform inside each
of these sections, and the time of each
section differs from that next to it . by
exactly one hour. Thus at 12 noon in
New York city, the time at Chicago is 11
a. m.; at Denver, 10 a. m., and. at San
Francisco, 9 a. m.
At present almost every civilized
country is using some system of standard
time, usually under the control of its
own government.
The chief source for standard time in
theUnited State? is the naval observatory
at Washington D. C. Here high grade
clocks are carefully regulated by observ
ation of the stars at night, and all neces
sary correction applied. For five min
utes preceding noon of eich day, eastern
time, the Western Union and Postal Tele
graph companies suspend all business and
throw their lines into connection with
the Washington observatory. It is so
arranged that the sounders all over the
lines make a stroke each second during
the fiveminutes until noon, except the
twenty ninth uf each minute, the last
five seonds of each of the first four min
utes and the last 10 seconds of the fifth
(Continued on page 8.)