800 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



that there is less risk of its being overlooked. The natural inference 

 from this is that one time-reckoning should be used throughout the 

 whole country, and thus we are led to look forward to the adoption in 

 the near future of a national standard time, six hours slow by Green- 

 wich, for railways and telegraphs throughout North America. 



We may then naturally expect that by the same process which we 

 have witnessed in England, France, Italy, Sweden, and other coun- 

 tries, railway-time will eventually regulate all the affairs of ordinary 

 life. There may of course be legal difficulties arising from the change 

 of time-reckoning, and probably in the first instance local time would 

 be held to be the legal time unless otherwise specified. 



It seems certain that when a single standard of time has been 

 adopted by the railways throughout such a large tract of country 

 as North America, where we have a difference of local times exceed- 

 ing five hours, the transition to universal time will be but a small 

 step. 



But it is when we come to consider the influence of telegraphs on 

 business life, an influence which is constantly exercised, and which is 

 year by year increasing, that the necessity for a universal or world 

 time becomes even more apparent. As far as railways are concerned, 

 each country has its own system, which is to a certain extent complete 

 in itself, though even in the case of railways the rapidly increasing 

 intercommunication between different countries makes the transition 

 in time-reckoning on crossing the frontier more and more inconven- 

 ient. Telegraphs, however, take no account of the time kept in the 

 countries through which they pass, and the question, as far as they 

 are concerned, resolves itself into the selection of that system of time- 

 reckoning which will give least trouble to those who use them. 



For the time which is thus proposed for eventual adoption through- 

 out the world, various names have been suggested. But whether we 

 call it Universal, Cosmic, Terrestrial, or, what seems to me best of all, 

 World Time, I think we may look forward to its adoption for many 

 purposes of life in the near future. 



The question, however, arises as to the starting-point for the uni- 

 versal or world day. Assuming that, as decided by the great majority 

 of the delegates at Washington, it is to be based on the meridian of 

 Greenwich, it has still to be settled whether the world day is to begin 

 at midnight or noon of that meridian. The astronomers at Rome 

 decided, by a majority of twenty-two to eight, in favor of the day 

 commencing at Greenwich noon, that is, of making the day through- 

 out Europe begin about midday. However natural it might be for a 

 body of astronomers to propose that their own peculiar and rather in- 

 convenient time-reckoning should be imposed on the general public, it 

 seems safe to predict that a world day which commenced in the mid- 

 dle of their busiest hours would not be accepted by business men. In 

 fact, the idea on which this proposal was founded was that universal 



