SKETCH OF CLEVELAND ABBE. 407 



which I had felt obliged to abandon — yet it grouped together so much 

 practical information, and was so suggestive of new lines of thinking, 

 that it really marked a new era in the history." Professor Abbe pre- 

 sented another very important report to the Metrological Society at 

 the December meeting of 1880, President Barnard was appointed to 

 draw up a circular upon the subject, and send it out to all who might 

 have an interest in the matter ; and with the help of Mr. Allen, of the 

 Railway Time Convention, the plan of hourly-standards, which is now 

 in use, was prepared, and the co-operation of nearly all the important 

 railroads secured for its successful introduction. 



As the delegate of the United States to the International Meridian 

 and Time Conference, which met at Washington in October, 1884, 

 Professor Abbe presented an argument which had considerable weight 

 in deciding the questions at issue, although it was only circulated in 

 proof-sheets among the members, and was withheld from publication 

 because if it became official it would necessitate a long reply from the 

 French delegates, and prolong a discussion that was likely to be un- 

 necessarily tedious. In this paper he offered as a solution of the ques- 

 tion of the real neutrality of the prime meridian, which the French 

 delegates insisted upon, the proposition that " the prime meridian shall 

 be defined by references as exact as may be practicable to all the na- 

 tional astronomical observatories of the twenty-five nations repre- 

 sented in this conference ; the grounds belonging to these observato- 

 ries shall be declared neutral territory, and the astronomers in charge 

 shall be respected in all international matters ; the precise choice of 

 the prime meridian shall be based on the principle of doing the least 

 possible violence to the existing customs of the world consistent with 

 the attainment of the greatest possible good ; that when adopted this 

 meridian shall receive no national designation obnoxious to any people, 

 but the whole system shall be known as the International Prime Me- 

 ridian, International Longitude, International Time." 



Professor Abbe led the party which went out from the Cincinnati 

 Obsei-vatory to observe the total eclipse of August 7, 1869. The com- 

 pany traveled in wagons from Sioux City to the line of totality near 

 Sioux Falls. His own attention was devoted to the observation, under 

 high power and in a small field of view, of three conical protuberances 

 of peculiar character, and he missed the coronal streamers which were 

 observed by the others with the naked eye and with opera-glasses ; 

 and he doubted whether the latter were not individual and subjective 

 phenomena, or originating in the earth's atmosphere. 



At the eclipse of August, 18T8, he selected a station on the sum- 

 mit of Pike's Peak, but was taken ill there, and had to be removed to 

 the Lake House (elevation ten thousand feet). Having recovered to 

 a sufficient extent, he was laid upon the ground during the eclipse and 

 devoted himself wholly to the study of the rays that extended above 

 the brilliant ring which was presumed to represent the true solar at- 



