No, this did not transport us back to the beginning of November so we could have more weeks in New Zealand. It was a timeball located on a hill above Lyttelton Harbour, which was enabled sailors to check their marine chronometers, thereby determining the longitude of their ships more accurately.
The balls were large painted wooden or metal balls that dropped at a predetermined time and there were hundreds of them around the world, all prepared according to Greenwich Mean Time. As the ball began its descent, the captains in the ships in the harbour would all set their chronometers.
Jean
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