Events laid along time's own axis, ordered as they happened. The record's spatial form — history you can walk.
A compound of time, Old English tīma, and line, Latin linea (a linen thread, a drawn line); events laid along time's own axis borrow the same idea of a line used to draw anything else in order.
Events laid along time's own axis, ordered exactly as they happened. The record's spatial form, a history a person can walk rather than only read.