360 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 



ually, however, the minds of the great mass of men will become famil- 

 iarized with the new ideas and in the end the new system of notation 

 can not fail to prevail. The main obstacles to bo overcome are the 

 restraints which tradition imposes and the usages which our ancestors 

 have transmitted to us. But prejudices of this character can be gradu- 

 ally and certainly surmounted, if the true principles of time-reckoning 

 be taught in schools and colleges. In a few years the youth of to-day 

 will be moving actors in life, to influence public opinion and so effect 

 an easy escape from the thraldom of custom. We have therefore good 

 grounds for the belief that, by the dawn of the coming century, the 

 civilized nations may enjoy a system of notation limited to no locality; 

 when the record of the events of history will be unmarked by doubt; 

 when ambiguity in hours and dates will be at an end ; when every 

 division of time will be concurrent in all longitudes. 



These expectations realized, the Washington Conference will have 

 rendered a great service to mankind. If the reforms of B. C. 46 and 

 A. D. 1582 owed their origin to the dominant necessity of removing 

 confusion in connection with the notations which existed in the then 

 conditions of the human race, in no less degree is another reform de- 

 manded by the new conditions which are presented in this age. Ob- 

 viously the needed change could not be consummated at a more suitable 

 period than at the beginning of the new century, but whether effected 

 at that or an earlier date, a provision is made for the change in the 

 conclusions and recommendations of the Washington Conference — a 

 conference wiiich, representing all civilized nations and having estab- 

 lished the fundamental principles of the new notation, must be held by 

 future generations to mark an epoch in the annals of the world not 

 less important than those of the reforms of Julius Caesar and Pope 

 Gregory XIII. 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE. 



TIME EECKONING FROM THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE 18T8-'T9. 



(Extract.) 



Persons who inhabit different sections of the earth differ from each other in their 

 reckoning of the day. At one place it is noon, at another it is midnight; at a third 

 it is sunrise, at a fourth it is sunset. In consequence we have the elements of con- 

 fusion, which involve in some cases the mistake of a whole day. 



People even living in the same meridian may differ a day in their usual reckoning 

 of time, according as the countries they inhabit have been colonized fiom the one 

 side or the other of the globe. There are instances in the Pacific Ocean where islands 

 almost adjacent reckon by different days of the month and week; a circumstance 

 calculated to produce much confusion when intercourse becomes frequent. 



In Alaska the days of the week and month were one day in advance of those in the 

 adjacent colonj' of British Columbia, iudocd of the whole of America. On the ad- 

 vent of citizens of the United States a few years ago, when that territory was trans- 

 ferred by Russia, the Saturday was found to be the Sunday of the old residents. For 

 ordinary business pur^iosea a change became necessary, and a dispensation was 

 granted iu 1871 by the dignitaries of the Greek Church in Russia, authorizing their 



