Abstract
MR. PEARSON'S query, in NATURE of November 28, docs not admit of any exact or scientific answer, for there is no natural line of demarcation or change, and the settlement is entirely a matter of usage or convenience. It is not very many years since the dates at Manilla and Macao were different; and till the cession of the Alaska Territory to the Americans, the date there was different from that in the British Territory adjoining. The rule now generally held is, that places in E. long, date as if they were arrived at by the Cape of Good Hope, and places in W. long as if they were reached via Cape Horn—a rule that the width of the Pacific renders practically convenient. Afloat, the rule is for a ship making a passage to change her date on crossing the meridian of 180°, or as soon after as the captain may find convenient; repeating or omitting a day, according to the direction in which she is going; but a ship merely cruising across the meridian, with the intention of returning, does not generally change her date, so that ships having different dates may and do occasionally meet—a very marked instance of which occurred during the Russian war, when our squadron from the Pacific joined the China squadron on the coast of Kamschatka.
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LAUGHTON, J. The Greenwich Date. Nature 7, 105 (1872). https://doi.org/10.1038/007105b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/007105b0
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