Mathematical Geography, Johnson
T
The following table is taken, by permission, largely from the abstracts of official reports given in Vol. IV, Appendix IV of the Publications of the United States Naval Observatory, 1905. The time given is fast or slow as compared with Greenwich mean solar time.
Argentina, 4 h. 16 m. 48.2 s. slow. Official time is referred to the merid- ian of Cordoba. At 11 o'clock, a.m., a daily signal is telegraphed from the Cordoba Observatory.
Austria-Hungary, 1 h. fast. Standard time does not exist except for the service of railroads where it is in force, not by law, but by order of the proper authorities.
Belgium. Official time is calculated from 0 to 24 hours, zero corre- sponding to midnight at Greenwich. The Royal Observatory at Brussels communicates daily the precise hour by telegraph.
British Empire.
Great Britain. The meridian of Greenwich is the standard time meridian for England, Isle of Man, Orkneys, Shetland Islands, and Scotland.
Ireland, 0 h. 25 m. 21.1 s. slow. The meridian of Dublin is the standard time meridian.
Africa (English Colonies), 2 h. fast. Standard time for Cape Colony, Natal, Orange River Colony, Rhodesia and Transvaal.
Australia.
New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and Victoria, 10 h. fast.
South Australia and Northern Territory, 9 h. 30 m. fast.
Canada.
Alberta and Saskatchewan, 7 h. slow.
British Columbia, 8 h. slow.
Keewatin and Manitoba, 6 h. slow.
Ontario and Quebec, 5 h. slow.
New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, 4 h. slow.
Chatham Island, 11 h. 30 m. fast.
Gibraltar, Greenwich time.
Hongkong, 8 h. fast.
Malta, 1 h. fast.
New Zealand, 11 h. 30 m. fast.
India. Local mean time of the Madras Observatory, 5 h. 20 m. 59.1 s., is practically used as standard time for India and Ceylon, being telegraphed daily all over the country; but for strictly local use it is generally converted into local mean time. It is proposed soon to adopt the standard time of 5 h. 30 m. fast of Greenwich for India and Ceylon, and 6 h. 30 m. fast of Greenwich for Burmah.
Newfoundland, 3 h. 30 m. 43.6 s. slow. (Local mean time of St. John's.)
Chile, 4 h. 42 m. 46.1 s. slow. The official railroad time is furnished by the Santiago Observatory. It is telegraphed over the country daily at 7 o'clock, a.m. The city of Valparaiso uses the local time, 4 h. 46 h. 34.1 m. slow, of the observatory at the Naval School located there.
China. An observatory is maintained by the Jesuit mission at Zikawei near Shanghai, and a time ball suspended from a mast on the French Bund in Shanghai is dropped electrically precisely at noon each day. This furnishes the local time at the port of Shanghai 8 h. 5 m. 43.3 s. fast, which is adopted by the railway and telegraph companies represented there, as well as by the coastwise shipping. From Shanghai the time is telegraphed to other ports. The Imperial Railways of North China use the same time, taking it from the British gun at Tientsin and passing it on to the stations of the railway twice each day, at 8 o'clock a.m. and at 8 o'clock p.m. Standard time, 7 h. and 8 h. fast, is coming into use all along the east coast of China from Newchwang to Hongkong.
Colombia. Local mean time is used at Bogota, 4 h. 56 m. 54.2 s. slow, taken every day at noon in the observatory. The lack of effective telegraphic service makes it impossible to communicate the time as corrected at Bogota to other parts of the country, it frequently taking four and five days to send messages a distance of from 50 to 100 miles.
Costa Rica, 5 h. 36 m. 16.9 s. slow. This is the local mean time of the Government Observatory at San José.
Cuba, 5 h. 29 m. 26 s. slow. The official time of the Republic is the civil mean time of the meridian of Havana and is used by the railroads and telegraph lines of the government. The Central Meteorological Station gives the time daily to the port and city of Havana as well as to all the telegraph offices of the Republic.
Denmark, 1 h. fast. In Iceland, the Faroe Islands and the Danish West Indies, local mean time is used.
Egypt, 2 h. fast. Standard time is sent out electrically by the standard clock of the observatory to the citadel at Cairo, to Alexandria, Port Said and Wady-Halfa.
Equador, 5 h. 14 m. 6.7 s. slow. The official time is that of the meridian of Quito, corrected daily from the National Observatory.
France, 0 h. 9 m. 20.9 s. fast. Legal time in France, Algeria and Tunis is local mean time of the Paris Observatory. Local mean time is considered legal in other French colonies.
German Empire.
Germany, 1 h. fast.
Kiaochau, 8 h. fast.
Southwest Africa, 1 h. fast.
It is proposed to adopt standard time for the following:
Bismarck Archipelago, Carolines, Mariane Islands and New* Guinea, 10 fast.
German East Africa, 2 h. fast or 2 h. 30 m. fast.
Kamerun, 1 h. fast.
Samoa (after an understanding with the U. S.), 12 h. fast.
Toga, Greenwich time.
Greece, 1 h. 34 m. 52.9 s. fast. By royal decree of September 14, 1895, the time in common use is that of the mean time of Athens, which is transmitted from the observatory by telegraph to the towns of the kingdom.
Holland. The local time of Amsterdam, 0 h. 19 m. 32.3 s. fast, is generally used, but Greenwich time is used by the post and telegraph administration and the railways and other transportation com- panies. The observatory at Leyden communicates the time twice a week to Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and other cities, and the telegraph bureau at Amsterdam signals the time to all the other telegraph bureaus every morning.
Honduras. In Honduras the half hour nearest to the meridian of Tegucigalpa, longitude 87° 12' west from Greenwich, is generally used. Said hour, 6 h. slow, is frequently determined at the National Institute by means of a solar chronometer and communicated by telephone to the Industrial School, where in turn it is indicated to the public by a steam whistle. The central telegraph office com- municates it to tho various sub-offices of the Republic, whose clocks generally serve as a basis for the time of the villages, and in this manner an approximately uniform time is established through- out the Republic.
Italy, 1 h. fast. Adopted by royal decree of August 10, 1893. This time is kept in all government establishments, ships of the Italian Navy in the ports of Italy, railroads, telegraph offices, and Italian coasting steamers. The hours are numbered from 0 to 24, beginning with midnight.
Japan. Imperial ordinance No. 51, of 1886: “The meridian that passes through the observatory at Greenwich, England, shall be the zero (0) meridian. Longitude shall be counted from the above meridian east and west up to 180 degrees, the east being positive and the west negative. From January 1, 1888, the time of the 135th degree east longitude shall be the standard time of Japan.” This is 9 h. fast.
Imperial ordinance No. 167, of 1895: “The standard time hitherto used in Japan shall henceforth be called central standard time. The time of the 120th degree east longitude shall be the standard time of Formosa, the Pescadores, the Yaeyama, and the Miyako groups, and shall be called western standard time. This ordinance shall take effect from the first of January, 1896.” This is 8 h. fast.
Korea, 8 h. 30 m. fast. Central standard time of Japan is telegraphed daily to the Imperial Japanese Post and Telegraph Office at Seoul. Before December, 1904, this was corrected by subtracting 30 m., which nearly represents the difference in longitude, and was then used by the railroads, street railways, and post and telegraph offices, and most of the better classes. Since December 1, 1904, the Jap- anese post-offices and railways in Korea have begun to use central standard time of Japan. In the country districts the people use sundials to some extent.
Luxemburg, 1 h. fast, the legal and uniform time.
Mexico, 6 h. 36 m. 26.7 s. slow. The National Astronomical Observatory of Tacubaya regulates a clock twice a day which marks the local mean time of the City of Mexico, and a signal is raised twice a week at noon upon the roof of the national palace, such signal being used to regulate the city's public clocks. This signal, the clock at the central telegraph office, and the public clock on the cathedral, serve as a basis for the time used commonly by the people. The general telegraph office transmits this time daily to all of its branch offices. Not every city in the country uses this time, however, since a local time, very imperfectly determined, is more commonly observed. The following railroad companies use standard City of Mexico time corrected daily by telegraph: Central, Hidalgo, Xico and San Rafael, National and Mexican. The Central and National railroads correct their clocks to City of Mexico time daily by means of the noon signal sent out from the Naval Observatory at Wash- ington (see page 71) and by a similar signal from the observatory at St. Louis, Missouri. The Nacozari, and the Cananea, Yaqui River and Pacific railroads use Mountain time, 7 h. slow, and the Sonora railroad uses the local time of Guaymas, 7 h. 24 m. slow.
Nicaragua, 5 h. 45 m. 10 s. slow. Managua time is issued to all public offices, railways, telegraph offices and churches in a zone that extends from San Juan del Sur, latitude 11° 15' 44" N., to El Ocotal, latitude 12° 46' N., and from El Castillo, longitude 84° 22' 37" W., to Corinto, longitude 87° 12' 31" W. The time of the Atlantic ports is usually obtained from the captains of ships.
Norway, 1 h. fast. Central European time is used everywhere through- out the country. Telegraphic time signals are sent out once a week to the telegraph stations throughout the country from the observatory of the Christiania University.
Panama. Both the local mean time of Colon, 5 h. 19 m. 39 s. slow, and eastern standard time of the United States, 5 h. slow, are used. The latter time is cabled daily by the Central and South American Cable Company from the Naval Observatory at Washington, and will probably soon be adopted as standard.
Peru, 5 h. 9 m. 3 s. slow. There is no official time. The railroad from Callao to Oroya takes its time by telegraph from the noon signal at the naval school at Callao, which may be said to be the standard time for Callao, Lima, and the whole of central Peru. The railroad from Mollendo to Lake Titicaca, in southern Peru, takes its time from ships in the Bay of Mollendo.
Portugal, 0 h. 36 m. 44.7 s. slow. Standard time is in use throughout Portugal and is based upon the meridian of Lisbon. It is estab- lished by the Royal Observatory in the Royal Park at Lisbon, and from there sent by telegraph to every railway station through- out Portugal having telegraphic communication. Clocks on railway station platforms are five minutes behind and clocks outside of stations are true.
Russia, 2 h. 1 m. 18.6 s. fast. All telegraph stations use the time of the Royal Observatory at Pulkowa, near St. Petersburg. At railroad stations both local and Pulkowa time are given, from which it is to be inferred that for all local purposes local time is used.
Salvador, 5 h. 56 m. 32 s. slow. The government has established a national observatory at San Salvador which issues time on Wednesdays and Saturdays, at noon, to all public offices, telegraph offices, railways, etc., throughout the Republic.
Santo Domingo, 4 h. 39 m. 32 s. slow. Local mean time is used, but there is no central observatory and no means of correcting the time. The time differs from that of the naval vessels in these waters by about 30 minutes.
Servia, 1 h. fast. Central European time is used by the railroad, tele- graph companies, and people generally. Clocks are regulated by telegraph from Budapest every day at noon.
Spain, Greenwich time. This is the official time for use in govern- mental offices in Spain and the Balearic Islands, railroad and telegraph offices. The hours are numbered from 0 to 24, beginning with midnight. In some portions local time is still used for private matters.
Sweden, 1 h. fast. Central European time is the standard in general use. It is sent out every week by telegraph from the Stockholm Observatory.
Switzerland, 1 h. fast. Central European time is the only legal time. It is sent out daily by telegraph from the Cantonal Observatory at Neuchatel.
Turkey, Two kinds of time are used, Turkish and Eastern European time, the former for the natives and the latter for Europeans. The railroads generally use both, the latter for the actual running of trains and Turkish time-tables for the benefit of the natives. Standard Turkish time is used generally by the people, sunset being the base, and twelve hours being added for a theoretical sunrise. The official clocks are set daily so as to read 12 o'clock at the theo- retical sunrise, from tables showing the times of sunset, but the tower clocks are set only two or three times a week. The govern- ment telegraph lines use Turkish time throughout the empire, and St. Sophia time, 1 h. 56 m. 53 s. fast, for telegrams sent out of the country.
United States. Standard time based upon the meridian of Greenwich, varying by whole hours from Greenwich time, is almost universally used, and is sent out daily by telegraph to most of the country, and to Havana and Panama from the Naval Observatory at Washington, and to the Pacific coast from the observatory at Mare Island Navy Yard, California. For further discussions of standard time belts in the United States, see pp. 66―68 and the U. S. standard time belt map. Insular possessions have time as follows:
Porto Rico, 4 h. slow, Atlantic standard time.
Alaska, 9 h. slow, Alaska standard time.
Hawaiian Islands, 10 h. 30 m. slow, Hawaiian standard time.
Guam, 9 h. 30 m. fast, Guam standard time.
Philippine Islands, 8 h. fast, Philippine standard time.
Tutuila, Samoa, 11 h. 30 m. slow, Samoan standard time.
Uruguay, 3 h. 44 m. 48.9 s. slow. The time in common use is the mean time of the meridian of the dome of the Metropolitan Church of Montevideo. The correct time is indicated by a striking clock in the tower of that church. An astronomical geodetic observatory, with meridian telescope and chronometers, has now been estab- lished and will in the future furnish the time. It is proposed to install a time ball for the benefit of navigators at the port of Monte- video. An electric time service will be extended throughout the country, using at first the meridian of the church and afterwards that of the national observatory, when constructed.
Venezuela, 4 h. 27 m. 43.6 s. The time is computed daily at the Caracas Observatory from observations of the sun and is occasionally tele- graphed to other parts of Venezuela. The cathedral clock at Caracas is corrected by means of these observations. Railway time is at least five minutes later than that indicated by the cathedral clock, which is accepted as standard by the people. Some people take time from the observatory flag, which always falls at noon.