450 Transactions. — Chemistry and Physics. 



tories are not, of course, geometrically drawn meridian lines, 

 but are lines which bend to suit the practical requirements of 

 the districts concerned, much after the fashion in which 

 boundaries between counties or States are drawn on ordinary 

 maps (see the frontispiece to Miss Byrd's book). 



In a pamphlet published in 1888* Dr. Robert Schram, of 

 Vienna, threw out the suggestion that when all the twenty- 

 four-hourly standards shall be in actual use it will be im- 

 portant to have a name for each which will be an easy guide 

 to its position in the earth's circumference. The letters of 

 the alphabet were to be used for this purpose ; but as people 

 would not probably care to speak of G time, or L time, or 

 Z time, Dr. Schram's idea was that each time section should 

 be called by the name of "a geographical point, so chosen 

 that it begins with the letter representing this section. The 

 place of the letter in the alphabet would indicate the longitude 

 of the section's mean meridian expressed in hours, and would 

 at once give in hours the difference between " standard time 

 and Greenwich time. He proposed the Latin alphabet in its 

 older form, containing twenty-three letters (the letters J, U, 

 and W of the modern alphabet being rejected). " The un- 

 Latin letter U would be used for the zero value — i.e., Green- 

 wich time — which would so retain its appropriate name, 'uni- 

 versal time.'" There would thus be " ^dria time, ".Balkan 

 time," and so on. Under this nomenclature the time section 

 falling to New Zealand would be called " Loyal time," the 

 assumption being that New Zealand would adopt the 

 11 h. meridian, which passes near the Loyalty Islands, to 

 the east of New Caledonia. This ingenious, if slightly fanciful 

 plan, however, does not seem so far to have been seriously 

 entertained. 



The gain effected by the extensive adoption of the standard 

 system has been very great, even though in some cases local 

 or other time has continued to be used alongside of the new 

 reckoning. 



In the "Geographical Journal" for February, 1899, 

 Professor John Milne, the eminent seismologist, gave a long 

 list, as complete as he had been able to compile it, of the 

 times kept all over the world. The variety was bewildering, 

 and an inspection of the list compelled one to recognise the 

 need for something better adapted to modern requirements. 



There are still a good many parts of the world which 

 remain to be converted to the international system, but the 



* See article "The Actual State of the Standard Time Question," by 

 Dr. Robert Schrarn, in " The Observatory " for April, 1890, in which Dr. 

 Schram gives an account of the nomenclature proposed in his previously 

 published pamphlet. 



