OCR Text |
Show World Date Line Only Matter of Convenience Custom and the convenience of the public regulates the International date line, as It does the divisions between rhe time belts In the United States. These do not follow merld- ians. The time belts In the Unlteif States are regulated by the Interstate Inter-state Commerce commission, but the Far East has never had a conference, confer-ence, International or local, to establish estab-lish the date line. It would be Inconvenient, for example, ex-ample, for some of the FIJI Islands to have n different day than Australia Aus-tralia or New Zealand, or to have the day of the week differ from one . Island to another. Until recently map makers differed on the location of the International date line. A few years ago Prof. George Davidson of the University of California, formerly of the United States coast and 'geodetic survey, conducted an extensive correspondence correspond-ence with the regions approximately under the date line to see what line was actually recognized by the people peo-ple who lived there. He drew a line on the map as a result of hl3 Investigation In-vestigation and practically all cartographers car-tographers follow It. |