2nd. To make the irregular disorder of local time an orderly confusion, the "standard time"--jumping by hours--has helped a little, but only because we can tell how much it is wrong at any given place. This is its only advantage over the first method, where we had no means of knowing what to expect on entering any new territory. That is, we have improved things by throwing out local time to the extent of an hour. My proposal is to throw local time out _totally_ and establish one, invariable, _universal time_. Greenwich time being most in use now, and meridians numbered from it, may be taken in preference to any other. Still another reason is that the most important timekeepers in modern life--ship's chronometers--are set to Greenwich time. Universal time--no local time--only local day and night. Our 24-hour system is all right, so do not disturb it, as it gets rid of A.M. and P.M. and makes the day our unit of time. Our railroad time now throws out local time to the extent of one hour; but I propose to throw it out entirely and never change the clock hands from Greenwich time. The chronometers do that now, so let us conduct all business to that time. Now refer to Fig. 46, in which Greenwich is taken as universal time. The annulus, half white and half black, indicates the average day and night, and is a separate ring in the dial which can be set so that "noon" is on the meridian of the place, as shown for four places in the illustration. It is the same dial in all four cases set to local day and night. Strictly, the local time conception is dropped and the local day left for regulating working and sleeping time. All business would have the same time. In traveling east we would not have the short hours; or west, the long hours. All clocks and watches would show the same time as ship's chronometers do now. The only change would be the names of the hours for the parts of the local day. This is just the difficulty, for we are so accustomed to _associate_ a certain number, as seven, with the morning and breakfast time. Suppose breakfast time in London is 7 o'clock, then according to the local day it would be 12 o'clock breakfast time in New York; but in both cases it would be the same time with reference to the _local daylight_. Let it be distinctly understood that our association of _12 o'clock_ with _noon_ is not necessary. The Japanese called it "horse" and "nine"--the ancient Romans, the New Testament writers, and the Turks called it the "sixth hour"--the astronomers now call it 24 o'clock, and the Chinese represent it by several characters; but, in all cases, it is simply the middle of the day at any place. By the proposed universal time, morning, noon, and evening would be--_at any given place_--the same hours. There would be no necessity of establishing legal noon with exactness to the meridian, because that would only regulate labor, meals, etc., and would not touch universal time.