340 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



undoubtedly be for the advantage and convenience of all civilized na- 

 tions if a general meridian were adopted by common consent ; if all 

 longitudes were counted in the same manner, and from a single origin. 

 Hitherto we have used the English meridian of Greenwich ; all our 

 geographical positions and territorial limits are fixed according to that, 

 our astronomical calculations are based upon it, our nautical charts and 

 books of navigation are adapted to it, and our chronometers are set to 

 its time. It has been so much our general practice to count from this 

 meridian, that it constitutes a part of our familiar thought and knowl- 

 edge. On this account, and especially with reference to the conveni- 

 ence of our wide-spread and growing commerce, a change of the old 

 meridian, if necessary, should be reconciled, as far as practicable, to the 

 wants and habits of the country. 



" The scientific importance of assuming, at present, an American 

 meridian is undoubted. So long as we depend upon that from which 

 we are separated by an ocean, our absolute longitudes remain indeter- 

 minate. Such are the difficulties attending the astronomical deter- 

 mination of this element, that the greatest accuracy attained is only 

 an approximation to the truth ; varying, as observations or computa- 

 tions are multiplied, or as new and better methods and values are in- 

 troduced. There is no place on our coast, the longitude of which 

 from Greenwich is so well ascertained as Boston. The observations 

 and computations made for this purpose by the late Dr. Bowditch, and 

 communicated to the American Academy, bear the marks of his genius 

 and labor. Mr. Bond, the director of the observatory at Cambridge, 

 has been for several years employed in the service of the government, 

 in accumulating all the means of perfecting the longitude of Boston. 

 Yet there still exists an uncertainty in this longitude, notwithstanding 

 all the labor and care bestowed upon it, to the amount of, perhaps, two 

 seconds of time. It is, also, a pregnant fact, worth mentioning, that 

 the relative longitudes even of the Greenwich and Paris observatories 

 have been recently changed. 



"But the uncertainties arising from the intrinsic difficulty of making 

 absolute determinations of longitude increase as the place is more re- 

 mote, and therefore less known or cared for. The assumption of a 

 new origin of longitude situated in this country will, to a considerable 

 extent, remove these uncertainties, and save us from those fluctuations 

 in our geographical positions to which we are now subject. In the 

 magnetic telegraph, we have a means of determining differences of 

 meridians, which belongs to the highest order of accuracy. It can be 

 applied at once wherever the wires now run. An American prime 

 meridian being adopted, this should be done as soon as possible. As 

 the use of the telegraph is extended, the interior, throughout its whole 

 space, would be connected in this manner with the stations of the Coast 

 Survey and the National Observatory, and would have the geographical 

 positions of its chief cities and county towns permanently and unalter- 

 ably fixed, and thus the foundation would be laid of a correct geograph- 

 ical map of the whole country. 



' In view of these considerations, it is proposed to establish an ar- 

 bitrary meridian at the city of New Orleans, in some locality having a 



