Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/819

Rh Meanwhile, Mr. Sandford Fleming's proposal had been discussed at the Geographical Congress at Venice in 1881, and at a meeting of the Geodetic Association at Rome in 1883. Following on this a special conference was held at Washington in October, 1884, to fix on a meridian proper to be employed as a common zero of longitude and standard of time-reckoning throughout the globe. As the result of the deliberation it was decided to recommend the adoption of the meridian of Greenwich as the zero of longitude, and the Greenwich civil day (commencing at Greenwich midnight and reckoned from 0 to twenty-four hours) as the standard for time-reckoning. In making this selection the delegates were influenced by the consideration that the meridian of Greenwich was already used by an overwhelming majority of sailors of all nations, being adopted for purposes of navigation by the United States, Germany, Austria, Italy, etc. Further, the United States had recently adopted Greenwich as the basis of their time-reckoning, and this circumstance in itself indicated that this was the only meridian on which the Eastern and Western Hemispheres were likely to agree.

The difficulties in the way of an agreement between the two hemispheres may be appreciated by the remarks of the Superintendent of the American Ephemeris on Mr. Sandford Fleming's scheme for universal time (which was subsequently adopted in its essentials at the Washington Conference): "A capital plan for use during the millennium. Too perfect for the present state of humanity. See no more reason for considering Europe in the matter than for considering the inhabitants of the planet Mars. No; we don't care for other nations, can't help them, and they can't help us."

As a means of introducing universal time, it has been proposed by Mr. Sandford Fleming, Mr. W. F. Allen, and others, that standard times, based on meridians differing by an exact number of hours from Greenwich, should be used all over the world. In some cases it may be that a meridian differing by an exact number of half-hours from Greenwich would be more suitable for a country like Ireland, Switzerland, Greece, or New Zealand, through the middle of which such a meridian would pass, while one of the hourly meridians would lie altogether outside of it.

The scheme of hourly meridians, though valuable as a step toward uniform time, can only be considered a provisional arrangement, and, though it may work well in countries like England, France, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Sweden, etc., which do not extend over more than one hour of longitude, in the case of such an extensive territory as the United States difficulties arise in the transition from one hour-section to the next which are only less annoying than those formerly experienced, because the number of transitions has been reduced from seventy-five to five, and the change of time has been made so large