GEOGRAPHY. 



By Commander F. M. Green, U. S. N. 



Among events of general geographical interest which have occurred 

 during the past year, one of the most important is the meeting of the 

 International Conference at Washington, in October, 1884, for the pur- 

 pose of fixing upon a meridian to be employed as a common zero of 

 longitude and standard of time-reckoning throughout the world. 



This conference assembled by invitation of the President of the United 

 States, in accordance with an act of Congress passed in 1882, delegates 

 from the following countries taking part in it : 



Austria-Hungary, Brazil, Chili, Colombia, Costa Kica, Denmark, 

 France, Germany, Great Britain, Guatemala, Hawaii, Italy, Japan, Li- 

 beria, Mexico, Netherlands, Paraguay, Eussia, Santo Domingo, Salva- 

 dor, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United States, and Venezu- 

 ela. 



After several consultations, the conference agreed unanimously that 

 a single prime meridian is desirable, and, with only the delegates from 

 France and Brazil dissenting, agreed to recommend to their respective 

 Governments the adoption of the meridian passing through the center 

 of the transit instrument at the Greenwich Observatory as the initial 

 meridian of longitude, and also voted to recommend that from this 

 meridian longitude shall be counted in two directions up to 180° ; east 

 longitude being plus, and west longitude minus. 



Kesolutions were also adopted in favor of adopting a universal day, 

 to be a mean solar day, beginning for all the world at the moment of 

 mean midnight of the initial meridian, and to be counted from zero to 

 twenty -four hours. 



An extensive chain of longitude measurements has been completed 

 recently by the labors of the United States naval officers under command 

 Df Lieut. Commander C. H. Davis, U. S. N,, in measuring from Panama 

 down the west coast of South America to Valparaiso. The results of 

 these measurements afibrd a remarkable proof of the accuracy of com- 

 bined astronomical and geodetic observations at the present day, and 

 are especially worthy of notice as being entirely homogeneous ; that is, 

 they are everywhere founded upon telegraphic comparisons of time- 

 pieces of which the errors on local time were determined, on the same 



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