Introductory Thoughts

( Originally Published Early 1900's )

" By the word of the Lord were the heavens made ; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth." PSALM xxxiii. 6.

No great while ago a defendant who had to appear at a Court held at Carlisle arrived there true to his time ac-cording to the local time at Carlisle appointed by the Court for the sitting; but he found that the Court had met by Greenwich time, and in his absence had decided the case against him. This was considered by certain gentlemen " learned in the law " to be both a hardship and an illegality, and the poor man obtained a second chance of being heard. Subsequently to this incident Parliament passed an Act providing that whenever any expression of time occurs in any Act of Parliament, deed, or other legal instrument, the time referred to shall (unless it is otherwise specifically stated) be held, in the case of Great Britain, to be Greenwich mean time, and in the case of Ireland, to be Dublin mean time.

Quite recently the following incident occurred at Liverpool, the outcome of which, by the way, seems hardly consistent with the statute just referred to. A levy was made by the Sheriff's Order on the household goods of some person who urged that, as this was done after sun-set, it was illegal. The Director of the Liverpool Observatory being called to testify to the time of sunset on the day of the levy, the defendant's objection was upheld. The conclusion appears unavoidable that, in noting the times of sunrise and sunset, local time, and not Greenwich time, must be regarded. This, as I have said above, seems not to be consistent with the statute, but I am not concerned here to discuss the question in that aspect. I only want to use the facts referred to as a means of showing that there is something more in the study of the stars than many persons imagine. In other words, that in inviting my readers to give a little thought to astronomical matters, I am asking them to consider things which are not only not necessarily occult, difficult, or fanciful, but which have in one way or another no slight bearing on business and pleasures of life.

It is not necessary to develope the argument to any great length, but it is just worth a passing thought, in considering the question whether astronomy has any, and if so what, utilitarian value, to remember that those two objects of daily interest and use, the almanack and the diary, entirely depend for their existence on the labours of the astronomer in his observatory. In our case, as Englishmen, these books are based on the labours of certain very insufficiently paid members of her Majesty's Civil Service at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and at the Nautical Almanack office in Gray's Inn Road. Were the staff belonging to either establishment to resort to the fashion-able expedient of a strike for higher pay (and there would be much justification for their doing so), sooner or later all the almanacks and diaries would cease to be published, and the public business of the country would to a large extent come to a standstill. But this is not all. The shipping of England would come to a standstill, or nearly so, and that not figuratively, but literally. Our vessels would have to go back to the principles of navigation practised by the inhabitants of these islands 2000 years ago ; they would have to become coasting vessels, feeling their way from place to place, and chiefly by daylight. Long voyages oversea would be well-nigh impossible, or only to be executed in the face of the greatest risks and the wildest chance. Our railway system would become utterly disorganised. A few trains could run, but the intervals between them would have to be considerable, and they could only travel by daylight and at very low speeds.