King. — On New Zealand Mean Time. 447 



revise the longitudes on the basis of Mr. Eussell's and Mr. 

 Adams's corrected determination.* 



A Note on the Universal Time Question. 



The references in the foregoing paper to universal or 

 standard time seem to render it advisable to add some par- 

 ticulars which may possibly be of interest to those members 

 who have not already made themselves acquainted with the 

 history of that scheme. For the substance of the following 

 note I am indebted to articles which have appeared during 

 the past few years in "The Observatory" and in "The Geo- 

 graphical Journal," and also to an excellent little American 

 book entitled " A Laboratory Manual in Astronomy," pub- 

 lished in Boston recently by Miss Mary B. Byrd, Director of 

 the Observatory of Smith College.! 



It seems to be uncertain who first suggested a universal 

 time system. As I have mentioned already, the scheme was 

 first heard of in America, where it was forced upon the atten- 

 tion of the railway authorities by the inconvenience caused by 

 a chaotic time-reckoning on the great railway-lines of the 

 continent. In 1870 Professor C. Dowd published his pam- 

 phlet advocating in effect the system which was afterwards 

 adopted, except that he suggested Washington, not Green- 

 wich, as the initial meridian. Professor Benjamin Pierce 

 also claims to have originated the suggestion ; and possibly 

 there may be other rivals of Professor Dowd's for pioneer 

 honours in this matter. The movement soon took definite 

 shape. It was favoured by various railway authorities and 

 public societies — e.g., the American Meteorological Society 

 and the Society of Civil Engineers — and in particular the 

 Canadian Institute was energetic in agitating the question. 

 The subject was discussed at the Geographical Congress at 

 Venice in 1881 and at the Geodetic Conference in Borne in 

 1883. 



In the following year (1884) a representative body called 

 the Prime Meridian Conference met at Washington. It 

 consisted of delegates from twenty-seven nations, and after 

 full discussion it passed several resolutions which were in- 

 tended as suggestions to the civilised Governments of the 

 world. These suggestions included "the adoption of a uni- 

 versal day, which should not interfere with the use of local or 

 other time ; that it should be a mean solar day beginning at 

 mean midnight of the initial meridian, the hours to be counted 

 from zero up to twenty-four, and that the initial meridian 



* Viz., 11 h. 39 m. 6*52 s. for Mount Cook Observatory, which was 

 1*21 s. east of Wellington Observatory, 

 t Ginn and Co., Boston, 1899. 



