Unificatioji in the ineasitfc of time. 75 



" adopt for the measuring of time the Calendar generally 

 " used in Europe."* 



If the writer is correctly informed, an Imperial decree 

 had been actually drawn up ordering, in compliance with 

 the request of the Berlin Statistical Congress, the general 

 adoption of the Gregorian Calendar throughout the empire, 

 but other considerations prevailed. It is only just, however, 

 to observe that, in 1862, the year of the emancipation of 

 the serfs, the attention of Russia was diverted by more 

 urgent reforms, which that of the Calendar might possibly 

 have endangered. 



II. 



On January 26, 1888, the Royal " Institute lombardo di 

 Science e Lettere" of Milan, received a communication " On 

 the advantages and possibility of the general adoption of 

 the Gregorian Calendar," and appointed a special committee 

 to report on the same.f 



In March of the same year the Paris Academy of Sciences 

 allowed a Note " On the Unification of the Calendar " to 

 be read, appointed a committee to study the question, and 

 published the note in the Comptes-rendjis.\ Subsequently 

 several other communications, bearing on the same subject, 

 were brought before the French Academy. 



The Paris Geographical Society, besides receiving at 

 their meeting of April 6th a first communication : " On 

 the general adoption of the Gregorian Calendar in its 

 relation to the universal hour" and, on March i8th, in the 

 presence of General Tcheng-ki-tong, the Chinese envoy in 

 Paris, a second paper : " On the Chinese Calendar, a propos 

 of the Unification of the Calendar," which were printed, 



* See the original French text of this important document in the Coiiiptes- 

 rendus des siances de V Accui&mie des Sciences de Paris, 19 March, 1888, p. 813. 

 t Rendicoitti del R. Institnto lombardo, Serie II., Vol. XXI., fasc. II. 

 X Seance du 19 mars, 1888. T. CVI. No. 12, p. 813. 



