PATER’S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3549, 28 March 1922, Page 55

PATER’S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

THE PACIFIC OCEAN DATE LINE. This was referred to the other day in the Otago Daily Times, and it will come up again, though not prominent enough to become a point in international affairs. This point has come up several times in geography, but I have not referred to it before—at least 1 think not —except once. Some of my old boys—l will not say how old—nray remember when I wrote two or three Chats upon the Pacific, and that reminds me that I had not written upon it before! And now I’ll quote a little from the Encyclopaedia Britanica: “In the calculation of days and night, midnight on one side may be regarded as corresponding to the noon either of the previous or of the following day. To avoid the confusion of dates which would thus arise it is necessary to determine a meridian at which dates should be brought into agreement—i.e., a line, the crossing of which would involve the changing of the name of the date, either forwards when proceeding westwards, or backwards when proceeding eastwards. Mariners have - generally adapted the meridian 180 degrees from Greenwich, situated in the Pacific Ocean, as a convenient line for co-ordinating dates. The so-called ‘lnternational Date-Land,’ which is, however, practically only due to American initiative, is designed to remove certain objections to the meridian of 180 degrees west, the most important of which is that groups of islands lying about this meridian differ in date by a day although only a few miles apart. (Some forms have been suggested; these generally agreed in retaining the meridian of 180 degrees in the mid-Pacific with a bend in the line in order to make the Alentian Islands and Alaska of the same time as America, and also in the south, so as to bring certain of the South Sea Islands into land with Australia and New Zealand. ’ This gets meridian to some extent, but it does not get a remedy of the Samoan difficulty. I have it marked out on one map which omits to draw the distinction between the Alentian Islands and Alaska Islands, and the Samoa Islands are not put in. North of the equator there is another inset I do know the meaning of. Along file part touching the Cancer of Capricorn there are the words “International DateLine, and below 7 these the words “Midday, Monday,” one each side of the Date Line. 'Tire Other Meridian Lines. —- When I wrote before I remember the Meridians connected with Pope Alexander’s Line of Demarkation. This Pope lived 1492-1503. This brings me back to just after America was discovered. —-The Line of Demarkation.— This is a paragraph from “History of the American Nation. After the discovery of America by Columbus, the Pope, Alexander VI, issued two bulls, dividing the heathen lands of the "world between Portugal and Spain. “These gave to Spain all she might discover west of a land drawn one hundred west of the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands. The next year the two powers entered into an agreement in accordance with which the dividing line should be 300 and seventy leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. Upon this agreement, duly ratified by the Pope, Spain based her claim to the new world. “The Mercator Map of 1541.—This map shows the word America applied to both the northern and- southern continents. It was long supposed to be the first, but quite recently another map (also by Mercator) has been discovered that was meant three years earlier. Mercator was the wriest geographer of the time, and showed a truly wonderful power of interpreting the reports of travellers and explorers, and of dividing the truth. “On the opposite page the map is given, and on the reverse side the map "as it appeared in maps. At the bottom are the words : ‘The Western Half of the Kiuero Map, 1529 showing the routes of Columbus and the Line of Demarkation.’ ’’ THE SOUTHERN COLONIES (16071700) VIRGINIA. “England was not ready in the first half of the sixteenth century to enter into competition for the New World She was not ready for that outburst of energy which ma'de her the successful rival of France and Spain; and the greatest colonization of the world.” The paragraph ends with : “But not until toward the end of the century did the English people take part in the contest for Empire for America.” The davs of Henry VIII had not yet come, and new dominions were not yet dreamt of. (To be Continued.)