THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 17TH NOVEMBER, 1877. 511
3. The practice of dropping a daily time-ball is common now-a-days in almost every European port largely frequented by sea-going vessels, and there is little need to say anything in advocacy of meeting the same want in so crowded a maritime caravanserai as the harbour of Victoria. It is well known that the lives of crews and the safety of cargoes depend, in no small degree, upon of the chronometers carried, and that during the voyage from England to China these delicate instru
the accuracy ments are subjected to great changes of temperature and to hygrometric differences of atmosphere that do not fail to accumulate error on the way.
4. That such error should undergo fluctuations according to the climate that is being traversed, thus adding to the uncertainty of the mariner, is no matter of surprise when it is borne in mind that whereas the axiom lays down that the voyage of least vicissitude to the chronometer is that along an isothermal line, the track of ships from England to China, either viâ the Suez Canal or round the Cape of Good Hope, lies athwart a succession of strongly contrasting zones of temperature varying from the cold of the German Ocean or Bay of Biscay to the tropical heat of Ceylon or Singapore.
5. Arrived at Hongkong, shipmasters, anxious to learn how much their time-pieces have gained or lost during the long and trying ordeal of the voyage, are unable to obtain this knowledge, and either once more face the sea with an uncertain "rate and error," or else have recourse to local watchmakers. I do not cast any imputation on the time kept by the watchmakers of the town, but it is a well established fact that no chronometer can be brought on shore to be rated, and then returned on board however carefully, without suffering derangement by the mere motion of carrying it in the hand, and on this account Messrs. G. FALCONER & Co., the best known of these firms, and one no doubt deriving some profit from this source of business, have themselves repeatedly deplored to me the circumstance that the Government should not have followed the example of other colonies and extended to the community generally and to the shipping in particular the benefit of correct time obtained by astronomical observations with stationary instruments in a properly organized Observatory.
6. During the course of the last two years, my attention has been so constantly attracted to this important question, that I have been at some pains to ascertain the true feeling of individual shipmasters, and I find that the want of a Time-Ball is much felt by them and doubtless, owing only to their very brief sojourns in harbour, they have never had the opportunity of combining to put in proper shape a Memorial to Government for the means of ascertaining true Greenwich Time. An attempt was about to be made at the beginning of this year to frame a Petition of the kind, but it was not proceeded with owing to the illness and sudden departure for Europe of the Manager of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam-ship Company who had interested himself in the matter.
7. But the signatures to a Memorial, I take it, would scarcely represent more than the few more actively concerned in local matters from their belonging to the China trade, and therefore continually frequenting the harbour; there are, however, equally large interests which would be liable to remain unrepresented in a document of the kind and to which a time-signal would be no less ir ortant, I mean the vast fleet of European and American sailing vessels in harbour not in the gular China trade, which traverse the ocean on single voyages, perhaps seldom bound twice to the same port, and who, having no certainty of returning to Hongkong, would be less likely to move any application to its Government on the subject.
8. Should the Government, after due investigation, satisfy itself that the institution of a daily time-signal in the port of Victoria is an undoubted requirement, and should it see its way to fulfilling it, it would become necessary for the purpose, to build and organize a small Observatory and to engage, upon the recommendation of the Astronomer Royal, the services of a competent professional person from England to take charge of the Establishment.
9. For the purely meridional work, or that connected with the determination of time, the following plant will be necessary: a Transit instrument with or without meridian circle, a Sidereal Clock with electro-chronograph register, electric apparatus with wires from the Observatory to the Signal Station, and mechanism at the latter for the instantaneous dropping of the ball at the given time.
10. An establishment of this kind can be founded on a proper footing at a prime cost of £3,000, and its upkeep, including the salary of the Officer in charge (which may be put down at £500), will be £600 a year. This outlay might be recouped by the small levy of a quarter of a cent or half a cent per ton upon the tonnage of European and American ships frequenting the port. If the enquiry be widely made, it will be found that so far from any objection being likely to be raised by shipmasters and shipowners, general satisfaction will prevail at the possibility of attaining so desirable an object at so small a charge, and indeed it would be surprising if any other feeling did exist.
11. As the same portion of the shipping at present paying Light Dues would pay the proposed Time Dues, the two could be collected by the same Officer. It will be seen, on reference to page 4 of the Blue Book of 1876, that at one cent per ton, the Light Dues during the year came to £3,279, at half a cent per ton the Time Dues would therefore have been £1,639, a revenue sufficient to cover the yearly cost of maintenance of the Observatory plus a third of the entire prime cost. Assuming, however, that the income of every year from this source would not be so high as that of 1876, it will not be over-sanguine to expect the establishment to have paid for itself in four, or at the very latest, in