Article July 24, 1902 Issue

A Fraction Lost

The Daily Patriot,

ENGLISH and French astronomers have long been conscious that there is a difference of .16 second between the Greenwich and Paris Observatories, and have recently set about discovering where the leakage occurs. The loss of so infinitesimal a space of time would cause little inconvenience to the ordinary mortal, but to the astronomer this loss of time is looked upon as a terrible inaccuracy. The importance of this missing four twenty-fifths of a second may be readily imagined, when it is known that England's greatest astronomers took the first steps to rectify this mistake, and the French government has been so favorably impressed that it has erected special and expensive apparatus to determine the problem, and astronomers are still at work trying to set the clock right for Paris and London.

To rectify the discrepancy existing between the Greenwich and the Paris meridian, says Black and White, investigations involving immense labor, have been conducted. Resulting from many experiments and determinations, the meridians of Paris and Greenwich have been brought to the position indicated, and now the effort is on foot to make an absolute correspondence. The decision to attempt to bring about the desired result springs from the recent congress of academies in Paris, at which Sir Archibald Geige and Sir Norman Lockyer were the English delegates. The movement, indeed, was initiated by these two famous scientists.

It is hoped now, once for all, the mistake which has so long puzzled the professors will be corrected, and twelve o'clock in Greenwich will be proved in Paris to be twelve o'clock.

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A Fraction Lost

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