Unification in the measure of time. 85 



that Dr. Janssen went to the very root of the question at 

 issue, and that a statement like his raised a doubt which 

 ought previously to have been dissipated by a fair discus- 

 sion. Instead of this, the choice of Greenwich, for all 

 international purposes, was carried, as it were, by acclama- 

 tion. Moreover, whilst Sir G. B. Airy, late Astronomer 

 Royal of Greenwich, in a letter dated June 18, 1879, to the 

 Secretary of State for the Colonies, said : " Nearly all 

 navigation is based on the Nautical Almajmc, which is 

 based on Greenwich observations and refer to Greenwich 



meridian I, as Superintendent of the Greenwich 



Observatory, entirely repudiate the idea of founding any 

 claim on this"; and whilst, as it was also acknowledged 

 during the Conference, " a law relative to the unification of 

 time notation is of less relative importance to the navigator,"* 

 the preference given at Washington to Greenwich was 

 almost entirely based on the argument disclaimed by Sir 

 G. B. Airy. It is not to be wondered at, after all this, if 

 Dr. Janssen, consistent with his scientific convictions, wrote 

 in the above Report : " The failure is not for France but for 

 science," and " The proposal of France (of a neutral inter- 

 national meridian except for astronomy and navigation) still 

 represents the impartial, scientific, and definitive solution of 

 the question, and we think it honourable for our country to 

 have defended that cause."f 



* These are the very words of Dr. Struve, in his Report on the Wash- 

 ington Conference. It is to be found, together with the letter of Sir G. B. 

 Airy, a great amount of useful information and most valuable documents on the 

 question in Mr. Sandford Fleming's (C.E., C.M.G.), Universal oi- Cosmic 

 Time. Proceedings of the Canadian Institute, Toronto, July, 1885, Vol. XXI., 

 No. 143. 



t " Si notreavis, tout scientifiqtie et desinteresse, n'a pasrallie la majorite, 

 I'echec n'est pas pour la France, il est pour la science," 1. c. p. 724. 



" Le meridien propose par la France reste toujours comme representant 

 la solution impartiale, scientifiqtie, definitive de la question. Nous pensons 

 qu'il y a honneur pour notre paj's d'avoir defendu cette cause," p. 715. 



