Unification in the measure of time. 79 



*' Conference of 1884," — thus again the Bologna Academy of 

 Sciences — " proposes as * universal day ' the mean solar 

 "day, submultiple of our solar year. But neither in the 

 " notation of dates, nor in international relations, nor in the 

 " determination of the moment of scientific phenomena, can 

 " that ' universal day ' be isolated from a month and a year 

 " perfectly designated. We are consequently and forcibly 

 *' in presence of the question whether, in order to indicate 

 " that month and that year, a new chronology and a new 

 "calendar should be created, or we should resort to a 

 " chronology and a Calendar already in use. No one, we 

 " believe, will seriously think of creating anything new : the 

 "least inconvenience of such a scheme would be, if not 

 " entirely to break with the past, to augment, without any 

 "advantage, the difficulty of recurring to it. Far from 

 " hailing such a creation of a new calendar as an advantage 

 " for science, we should consider it as disastrous. Now, the 

 " choice among the existing calendars cannot be doubtful. 

 " Hence, the Bologna Academy of Sciences do not hesitate 

 "to express their conviction that, everything taken into 

 " account, and considering the advantage not merely of one 

 " particular science only, but of the whole hiinianmn scibile, 

 " the frank and entire adoption of the Gregorian Calendar 

 " is the measure which would best serve the interests both 

 "of science and humanity. A more regular division of the 

 " number of days for every month should be, at any rate, 

 " the maximum reform applied to our Calendar."* 



The same opinion is expressed as the result of a critical 

 examination of our Calendar by Prof Forster, the Superin- 

 tendent of the Berlin Observatory, with the only additional 

 remark — which, of course, is already admitted by the 

 Bologna Academy of Sciences — that the intercalary day 

 of every leap year, should be assigned to the month of 

 December, and Dr. Forster seems also inclined to recommend 



* Sur les derniers progres, etc. — p. 11-12. 



