1889-90.] FIFTH MEETING. 7 



New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Manitoba, Assiniboia, Alberta, 

 British Columbia, and partly in Quebec and Ontario, and so satisfactory 

 are the results of four years' experience that there can be no doubt of its 

 application being speedily extended. The Institute has had communi- 

 cation with the Grand Trunk and Canadian Pacific authorities, who are, 

 we believe, quite ready to introduce it so soon as they are satisfied the 

 public will assist. 



He also read a translation of a communication from the distinguished 

 Belgian, M. Houzeau, on " The History of the Hour." He pointed out 

 that the division of the day into two series of hours goes back more 

 than twenty centuries before our era, but the point of division being 

 placed at mid-day is comparatively recent. Originally the first hour 

 began at the rising of the sun ; mid-day was called six o'clock and sunset 

 was called twelve o'clock. The progress of the day was denoted by the 

 position of the sun, the hours of the night by the stars. The length of 

 the hours continually changed with the seasons, and it is remarkable 

 that when a commencement was made to use mechanical movements to 

 measure time the population exacted the preservation of the unequal 

 hours. As a consequence the machines were exceedingly complicated. 

 To mark continually varying periods of duration by instruments of 

 regular motion demanded the greatest ingenuity, but such are the 

 exigencies of ancient habit of thought that people would not for a long 

 period hear of compounding. The day and night, they exacted, should 

 remain separated, and that the hours should be variable in length, 

 according to the seasons. In Paris, so late as the beginning of this 

 century, distinctions were awarded for mechanism that would denote 

 the variable hours ; the hours of the day in June were more than double 

 those of the night, and in December vice versa. This troublesome 

 arrangement came to an end and clocks were allowed to go at the same 

 rate day and night, but the commencement of reckoning continued to be 

 placed at sunset, a custom which exists at the present day in some parts 

 of Italy. As the moment of sunset is changing from day to day, it 

 became necessary constantly to interfere with the most uniform clocks, 

 moving the hands backward or forward as the seasons changed. This, 

 too, came to an end. In 1792 London ceased to push on the hour ; the 

 Continent was less enterprising, Berlin only renounced the daily altera- 

 tion of its clocks in 1810, and Paris in 1816. There yet remains to us of 

 primitive times the double series of hours in each divisional period, the 

 meaning of which has long since disappeared, as there is only one 

 species of hours. We have also the absence of system in the relationship 

 between the hours m the different longitudes. M. Houzeau writes : — 

 " What then has been done is but a small matter with regard to the 



