it is 20 minutes too fast for the west of England. This led to no end of confusion and clocks were often seen with two minute hands, one to local and the other to railroad time. This mixed up method was followed by "standard time," with which we are all pretty well acquainted. Simply, standard time consists in a uniform time for each 15° of longitude, but this is theoretical to the extreme, and is not even approached in practice. The first zone commences at Greenwich and as that is near the eastern edge of the British Islands, their single zone time is fast at nearly all places, especially the west coast of Ireland. When we follow these zones over to the United States we find an attempt to make the middle of each zone correct to local time, so at the hour jumping points, we pass from half an hour slow to half an hour fast, or the reverse. We thus see that towns about the middle of these four United States zones have sunrise and sunset and their local day correct, but those at the eastern and western edges average half an hour wrong. As a consequence of this disturbance of the working hours depending on the light of the day, many places keep two sets of clocks and great confusion results. Even this is comprehensible; but it is a mere fraction of the trouble and complication, because the hour zones are not separated by meridians in practice, but by zig-zag lines of great irregularity. Look at a time map of the United States and you will see the zones divided by lines of the wildest irregularity. Now question one of the brightest "scientific chaps" you can find in one of the great railroad offices whose lines touch, or enter, Canada and Mexico. Please do not tell me what he said to you! So great is the confusion that no man understands it all. The amount of wealth destroyed in printing time tables, _and failing to explain them_, is immense. The amount of human life destroyed by premature death, as a result of wear and tear of brain cells is too sad to contemplate. And all by attempting the impossible; for local time, _even if it was reduced to hourly periods_ is not compatible with any continental system of time and matters can only get worse while the attempt continues. For the present, banish this zone system from your mind and let us consider the beginning and ending of a day, using strictly local time. [Illustration: Fig. 47--Local Time--Standard Time--Beginning and Ending of the Day]