Trans. N. Y. Ac. Set. 92 Jan. i6, 



pleased to interest himself actively in promoting the success of the 

 movement. The papers relating to it which have been published by the 

 two associations whose titles have just been mentioned'-, have been 

 forwarded by Lord Lome, through the British Foreign Office in Lon- 

 don, to countries with which Great Britain is in diplomatic relations, 

 and to their scientific associations ; and from, the Imperial Academy of 

 Sciences at St. Petersburg have been received copies of a report from 

 a committee, of which tne eminent astronomer Otto Struve was chair- 

 man, cordially approving the project; which report was adopted by the 

 Academy. 



Two or three minor features of the scheme contained in the resolu- 

 tions proposed remain to be mentioned. The first of these is the pro- 

 position to abolish the present division of the day into two equal portions 

 of twelve hours each, and to employ instead a continuous count running 

 from one to twenty-four hours in each day. The division at present 

 in use is not a natural one. It is founded, presumably, upon the custom 

 of astronomers to begin the day at the meridian passage of the sun, or 

 the habit of the people to fix the moment of apparent noon by observ- 

 ing the coincidence of the shadow of a vertical style with a hne drawn 

 north and south. The natural division of the day is into a light portion 

 ard a dark portion. These portions are always and everywhere 

 unequal, except for a single day in the year, or for a single great circle 

 of the earth — the equator. No exact system for the uniform division of 

 time can therefore be founded upon them. On the other hand, no 

 disadvantage can arise from regarding the day as a unit, subdivided 

 into twenty-four equal fractions, a mode of division once very general, 

 at least in Italy, and hardly yet entirely abandoned ; while there are 

 very appreciable disadvantages attending the present division into 

 twelve-hour moieties. The first of these is the necessity of using 

 always in speech the wj or d forenoon or afternoon, in order to identify 

 the portion of the day to which any hour which happens to be mention- 

 ed or is to be referred ; or, in writing, to place af .er the number of the 

 hour the explanatory suffix A. M. or P. M. Another and even greater 

 is the uncertainty in railway time-tables as to whether a particular 

 hour is an hour of the night or of the day. The compact form of these 

 tables renders it impossible always to introduce the necessary specifi- 

 cations in their columns, and the inquirer is thus often left at a loss. 

 Some of the tables, in order to remove the embarrassment, have 

 employed the expedient of printing the hours of the night in white 

 letters upon a black ground, while those of the day are printed in the 

 usual way with black letters upon a white ground '^ ; but the very 

 adoption of this expedient is a confession of the existence of an evil 

 which we may easily perceive to be quite unnecessary. Let the hours 



