time, proper to its own place. There would be no means of detecting the amount of error, since the messages were transmitted by a medium involved with them in their transportation. If only local time can be established, the possibility of a warped time-plane—the curvature of time—is directly opened up. Doubtless it is true that on so relatively minute a scale as is offered by the earth, any deviation from perfect flatness of the time-plane would be so inconsiderable and imperceptible as to make it scientifically negligible; but this by no means follows when we consider our relation to other worlds and other systems.
A similar condition holds with regard to space-distortion. The Theory of Relativity enforces the conclusion that from the standpoint of our conventions in regard to these matters, all bodies involved in transportation undergo a contraction in the direction of that transportation, while their dimensions perpendicular to the transportation remain invariable. This contraction is the same for all bodies. For bodies