XII THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
to adopt the principle of standard time, which was first suggested in 
Canada in 1878 by Sir Sandford Fleming, at that time engineer-in-chief 
of the Canadian Pacific Railway.” Referring to the fact that, when 
it is noon at the easternmost point of Canada, it is only twenty minutes 
to seven in the morning at the westernmost point, and that uniformity 
of time over such an area was an impossibility, while great confusion 
resulted from the maintenance of local reckonings, the Times proceeds: 
“Tt is manifest that the adoption of such a principle became quite 
‘indispensable to Canada as soon as the Canadian Pacific Railway had 
pushed its way out into the West; and it was, doubtless, this considera- 
tion which first led Sir Sandford Fleming to devote his attention to the 
subject. Thus it is that the building of a railway across Canada from 
sea to sea has led, mainly through the initiative of a single mar, to the 
establishment of a system of standard time throughout North America 
and Europe, to the adoption of Greenwich mean time as the basis of 
that standard time, and to the disestablishment of the historic meridian 
of Paris.” 
IX.—IMPERIAL CABLE SERVICE. 
It is impossible that the Society should not be deeply interested 
in any project having the advantage and unification of the whole 
British Empire as its object; and at this moment there is a project of 
this nature under consideration, that namely for the establishment 
of a world-encircling system of state-owned cables, touching only 
British territory, with which the names of two members of this Society 
are closely associated, Sir Sandford Fleming and the Honourable Mr. 
Lemieux. The Council would respectfully submit for the consideration 
of the Council the question whether it would be expedient to adopt a 
resolution expressive of their interest in this great scheme and their 
hope for its early realization. 
X.—RELATIONS WITH THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCE- 
MENT OF SCIENCE. 
The attention of the Council was drawn a short time ago by one 
of its own members, Dr. Alexander Johnson, ex-President, to the 
beneficial results that had, on past occasions, flowed from the appoint- 
ment of joint committees of the British Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science and The Royal Society of Canada to promote special 
objects or carry on special investigations. Such had been the com- 
mittees that had taken up the subjects of the Survey of Tides and Cur- 
rents, the establishment of a Hydrographic Survey and the creation 
of an Ethnological bureau in connection with the Geological Survey of 
a 
