88 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



nec-tion, it is wortli while to note that at (ireenwieh, since 1885, civil 

 time, counted in one :i4-houi' series, has been used for spectroscopic. 

 phot02;raphic, magnetic and meteorological observations, the astronomer 

 rt)3-al being friendly to the reform. 



But. after all. what arc the objections urged against the adoption of 

 the proposition for the unification of time? Practically, there are but 

 two : the convenience of astronomers and computers and the possible con- 

 fusion that would, for a time, prevail at sea. The latter has been 

 ert'ectually answered by Commodore Franklin and others, who know 

 whereof they speak. The former appears to bo due to a deep-rooted 

 )>vejudice to change in any form. And the question may be asked : Is 

 the personal comfort and convenience of a certain sprinkling of astrono- 

 mers, safel}" housed in their observatories, sustained, like themselves, as a 

 ])ublic charge, to prevail over the interests of the thousands of sea-faring 

 men labouring to make a livelihood ? These gentlemen, ^vho appeal to 

 every phase of the question save the paramount one, seem to forget that 

 thej' are simply a means to an end and that, officially, they were made 

 for navigatin-s, and not navigators for them. The establishment of 

 national observatoi'ies and the publication of nautical almanacs had but 

 one object, namely, to meet the exigencies of navigation; or, in other 

 words, -'to perfect the art of navigation," a fact which those official 

 astronomers and comyniters who. for ])urely personal reasons, are not in 

 sympathy with this movement might do M^ell to bear in mind. The plea 

 of inconvenience on the part of astronomers is very appropriately dealt 

 with bv a recent French writer in discussing the subject generally. 

 Kvidently, in a spirit of railler}', he exclaims that it is no doubt true that 

 it would somewhat incommode an astronomer to change a date in his 

 note-book, in the middle of a night's observations, and that it is possible 

 that he might sometimes forget to make the entry, which, of course, 

 would cause errors, errors, however, that could afterwards be discovered 

 and corrected. But this is an inconvenience which already exists under 

 the present system of taking solar observations, and especially at sea 

 where mariners find themselves continually (à chaque instant) in the 

 liresence of the very inconvenience which "affrights the astronomers." 

 Further, he says, the navigator, jircoccupied by a thousand anxieties and 

 obliged to use his time observations to decide upon his course, is more 

 (ixposed to error than the asti-onomer ; error, too, which may be attended 

 by grave consequences to life and jjroperty. To the charge of discon- 

 tinuity in the records of observation, he answers that it cannot be 

 greater than that caused by the introduction of the (Jregorian system 

 and the counting of the beginning of the year on the first day of January ; 

 that the observations of the last two centuries will always be available 

 ;ind that, if the ref(jrm be adopted, a single correction will be sufficient to 

 I cstore uniformity. To the further objection that unification would be 



