OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 473 



S«ven hundred and sixty-eijjhth Meeting. 



January 9, 1884. — Stated Meeting. 



The President in the chair. 



The Corresponding Secretary read letters announcing the 

 death of Joachim Barrande, of Prague, and Oswald Heer, 

 of Zurich, Foreign Honorary Members; also a letter from 

 Charles Hermite, acknowledging his election as Foreign 

 Honorary Member. 



The death was announced of Andrew A Humphreys, of 

 Washington, Associate Fellow ; and of Evangelinus A. 

 Sophocles, of Cambridge, and Calvin Ellis, of Boston, Resi- 

 dent Fellows. 



Mr. Edmands presented the following report of the com- 

 mittee on Standard Time. 



To THE President of the American Academy of Arts and 



Sciences : — 



Sir, — The Committee appointed to consider the advisabiUty, with 

 reference to the pubhc convenience, of an acceptance by cities and 

 towns of the system recently adopted by the raih-oads of the United 

 States and Canada, by which the time will be uniform within each of 

 five sections of North America, respectfully recommend the general 

 introduction of the system for the following reasons. 



It is of the greatest practical importance in a business community 

 and among travellers to have an accepted standard time, to which well- 

 constructed clocks and watches conform. True solar time is not reg- 

 ular enough for this purpose, since clocks cannot be made to keep time 

 with it. " Mean time " is an arbitrary device which overcomes the 

 difficulty. At different seasons of the year it is alternately faster and 

 slower than true solar time ; yet it serves practical purposes so well, 

 that many persons are ignorant of the fact that the difference exists. 

 As the division of the day into twenty-four hours and the calling of 

 noon " twelve o'clock " are both mere conventional arrangements, no 

 difficulty has been found in calling it twelve o'clock when an imaginary 

 or " mean " sun crosses the meridian, although twice a year this mean 

 noon varies more than a quarter of an hour from true solar noon. 



For places in ditferent longitudes, mean noon occurs at different 

 instants. Many a suburban resident would find his watch a minute 



