The Bridge Across the Ocean

WHEN you go to Europe you have to take two things with you besides your ticket and your luggage. I wonder if you can guess what they are. You have to take plenty of money, but not of your country, as it wouldn’t be any good, but of the kind used in the country to which you are going; and the second thing you have to have is a passport. A passport is a little book with only one picture in it—your own—and very few pages. The reading is not a story—it gives you permission to land in the country to which you are going. It is like a ticket of admission: Admit only the person whose picture is in the book. They won’t let you go aboard the ship or airplane unless you have a passport, and they won’t let you get off the ship unless you have a passport.

It is about 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean from New York, the largest city in the New World, to London, the largest city in the Old World.

Columbus took over a month to cross the Atlantic Ocean from Europe to America.

We can cross in less than a week by ship?

We can cross in less than a day by airplane!

But there is something that crosses the ocean faster than that and does it every day and is always on time. You would never guess what it is. It’s the sun. The sun crosses from London to New York in five hours and does it every day.

The people in London, when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky over their heads, set their clocks at 12 o’clock—midday. Five hours later the sun has reached New York and the people there set their watches at 12 o’clock too, because that’s what 12 o’clock means: “when the sun is highest in the sky.” While the sun has been crossing the ocean all the watches and clocks in London have been ticking along, so it is 5 o’clock in London when it is 12 o’clock here in New York. That is, London clocks are five hours ahead of our clocks.