WHERE DOES A DAY BEGIN?

Temuka Leader, Volume I, Issue 87, 16 October 1878, Page 3

WHERE DOES A DAY BEGIN?

Some time ago we offered to our readers this problem, which we clipped from the pages of an English scientific periodical, ‘ Nature,’ How many of our readers have solved the question ? How many have unsuccessfully tried to solve it ? The chief difficulty in finding the true solution is the liability to sup pose that it is an astronomical question. This is not the case. As the writer in ‘ Nature ’ points out, it is simply a question of the march of civi'isation. The solution may be given as follows. The reckoning by days, of week or month, originated in Europe. Travellers going westward carried this reckoning with them, but the further west they went the later would their day commence as compared with the time at the starting point. On the othei hand, the further the reckoning was carried eastwards the earlier would the day begin. The answer to the question, “Where does a day begin ? ” must then be the same with that to the question, “Which is the furthest point, in longitude, to which the Euiopean reckoning has been carried by travellers going eastwardly ?” Of extensive places New Zealand is, as the writer in ‘ Nature ’ asserts, this point. The Chatham Islands, lying to the east of, and taking their reckoning from, New Zealand, have their day still earlier. Other well-known islands in the Pacific, the Society Islands, the Marquesas, and Pitcairn Island, will commence any day still earlier if their reckoning was carried to them from the west. If from the east later—unless the reckoning was changed on the way. This problem has many curious and interesting corollaries. If, as is probable, Honolulu took its reckoning from America, and Tahiti from eastwardgoing ships, it is about mid-day of Tuesday at the latter place at the same time that it is mid-day of Monday at the former. If a fully-inhabited belt of land surrounded the earth at any latitude it would be necessary to select some arbitrary north and south line to divide, not between the light and the darkness, but between one day and another. On one side of this line one day would be reckoned, while on the other side the next preceeding or succeeding day would be counted. A number of odd complications could thus arise from which the existence of a wide north and south ocean saves us. It, will be seen that the bells of New Zealand are amongst the first, if not the first, to open that long pealing which, swelling, sinking, and intermitting, ushers in a new year. New Zealanders have attacked and finished one end of that long train of Christmas dinners which once a year surround the earth, and have passed into another day before the pudding is put into the pot for the other end of the train. Our Saint Patrick’s Day is nearly over while our American cousins are discussing a programme for “ to-morrow.” Churchmen may remember that, a few years ago, Easter Sunday was kept in these colonies at a different date from that on which it was kept in England, or ought to have been, according to the rule for finding Easter Sunday. This was owing to a change of the Paschal moon occurring after a certain hour of our time, but before the same hour in England on a certain day. Some very curious opinions were expressed in English papers on the subject, one reverend gentlemen affirming that it was impossible to know where a day began because we were not present at the creation !