NEW TIME-RECKONING. 359 



If SO much has been accomplisbed within the eight years since the 

 scheme of reform was first promulgated, is it too much to expect that 

 the public miud will be prepared in the more advanced communities to 

 accept the final step in a like period ? 



In about a dozen years we pass into another century. Is it tak- 

 ing too sanguine a view to suggest that by that time all nations will 

 be willing to accept the change, and that the first day of January in 

 the Twentieth Century may appropriately be inaugurated by the adop- 

 tion of one uniform system of reckoning time throughout the world ? 



I learn from the recent lecture of the Astronomer Eoyal that the Board 

 of Visitors of Greenwich Observatory^ have unanimously recommended 

 that, in accordance with the resolutions of the Washington Conference, 

 the Astronomical day should in the English Nautical Almanac be ar- 

 ranged from the year 1891 (the earliest practicable date) to begin at 

 Greenwich midnight, so as to agree with the civil reckoning, and further 

 that steps have been taken to give effect to this recommendation ; thus 

 in a few years this source of confusion to sailors navigating ships using 

 the Nautical Almanac — embracing at least 70 per cent, of the tonnage of 

 the world — will be removed. The distinguished Eussian Astronomer, 

 Struve, has suggested that all astronomers throughout the world should 

 simultaneously abandon Astronomical Time and bring their notation 

 into harmony with the civil reckoning. He further suggests that this 

 reform should be introduced into the publications of observatories at 

 the initial day of the century. In reference to this the Astronomer 

 Eoyal, Greenwich, says (October, 1885) "it would be intolerable to have 

 a fundamental question of time-reckoning left open for fifteen years," 

 and urges that the step be taken ten years earlier. Be that as it may 

 with regard to the assimilation of the astronomical and civil notations 

 no one can question that the change of the century is an appropriate 

 period for effecting the complete unification of time, and doing away 

 with all the errors of our present mode of reckoning. Every auxiliary 

 circumstance points to the possibility of that result being attained. The 

 proceedings of the Washington Conference have given the movement 

 an immense impulse. Its members have authoritatively recognized the 

 principles on which the new notation may be established. So unim- 

 peachable and simple are these principles as to be within the grasp of 

 the most limited comprehension. In their application we may have to 

 contend against the prejudices engendered by habit and custom, but 

 the i^riuciples of reckoning time adopted by the conference are based 

 on truth and they commend themselves to every one of intelligence, as 

 the proper means to meet the admitted emergency. The unanimity 

 with which the standard hour system was brought into common use in 

 ]tsorth America is an evidence that the age is sufiiciently intelligent to 

 adopt a reform when its advantages are understood. It will doubtless 

 require the lapse of some years to win over those who feel it- to be a 

 bounden duty to cling to old institutions and existing customs. Grad- 



