LONGITUDE AND TIME-RECKONING. 147 
which it contains shows that the subject we have been considering is 
engaging the attention of eminent geographers in Europe : 
«« A New First Meripran.—It is admitted by geographers that the present 
variety of ‘first meridians’ is extremely embarrassing and not conducive to 
accuracy. A good many proposals have been made recently for the establish- 
ment of a common first meridian for all countries, but, as one might expect, 
there is a want of agreement as to what line should be chosen. The question 
was taken up at the last International Congress of Geography at Paris, and 
among the contributions to the subject was a paper by M. Bouthillier de 
Beaumont, President of the Geographical Society of Geneva. The subject was 
brought on a former occasion before the Antwerp Geographical Congress, 
where it was very thoroughly discussed by competent geographers. The 
proposal, however, did not receive more than expressions of sympathy and 
encouragement. To propose, as M. de Beaumont says, to take the meridian 
of Greenwich or any other national meridian as the initial one, is not to advance 
the question; rather, it leaves it in statu quo. Nor would it be a happy 
solution to take the old meridian of Ferro, abandoned by the chief maritime 
nations and presenting peculiar difficulties in its actual position. At the 
Congress of Paris of 1875 Jerusalem was proposed, a proposal more creditable 
to the heart than the head of the professor. Now M. de Beaumont asks: 
‘Does there exist and can we find a meridian which, by its position on the 
earth, is sufficiently determined to be taken as the initial meridian, solely on 
account of its natural and individual character?’ In reply he draws attention 
to the meridian passing through Behring’s Strait, as satisfying beyond any 
other this demand. It is now the 150th meridian west of the island of Ferro, 
or 30 deg. E., or 10 deg. E. of Paris. This meridian, M. de Beaumont main- 
tains, can be very easily connected with works based on the principal meridians 
of Ferro, Paris, Greenwich, &c. It touches the extremity of the American 
continent at Cape Prince of Wales; traverses, on the one hand, the whole 
length of the Pacific without touching any land, and, on the other, all Europe, 
through its centre, from the top of Spitzbergen, passing Copenhagen, Leipsic, 
Venice and Rome; then cuts the African continent from Tripoli to Cape Frio, 
about 18 deg. S. lat. M. de Beaumont urges several advantages on behalf of 
this new meridian. It would cut Europe into east and west, thus giving em- 
phasis to a division which has been tacitly recognized for ages; it presents 
about the largest possible terrestrial arc, from 79 deg. N. to 18 deg. S. lat., 
97 degrees altogether, thus giving to science the longest continuous line of 
land as a basis for astronomical, geodetic, and meteorological observations, and 
other important scientific researches. Passing as it would through a great 
number of States, it would become a really international meridian, as each 
nation might establish a station or observatory on the line of its circumference. 
Such a meridian M. de Beaumont proposes to call mediator, on the analogy of 
equator. This proposal of M. de Beaumont is strongly approved by the 
eminent French geographer, M. E. Cortambert, and has received considerable 
support from other continental geographers. Whether M. de Beaumont’s 
particular proposal be generally accepted or not, there can be no doubt of the 
