UNIVERSAL OR COSMIC TIME. (6 
attempts made since the establishment of the electro-magnetic tele- 
graph to make the notation of time synchronous. While pointing 
out that this result had been obtained in Great Britain through 
the efforts of Professor Airy, Mr. Cleveland Abbe gave a list of the 
various observatories on this continent which are in possession of the 
necessary apparatus and force proper to furnish astronomically accu- 
rate time by telegraph. Writing in February, 1880, while giving 
the resolution adopted by the society, recommending the adoption 
of accurate time by telegraph from an established astronomical ob- 
servatory, Mr. Cleveland Abbe points out that the subject of accu- 
rate time had been taken up by the Horological Bureau of the 
Winchester Observatory of Yale College, and that the most perfect 
apparatus had been received for the purpose of distributing New 
York time with the highest degree of uniformity and accuracy. 
Mr. Cleveland Abbe’s own remarks on the subject are of high 
value. He forcibly points out the difficulties and inconveniences un- 
der which railway operations in America labour from the want of a 
proper system of time. ‘To show this fact in greater force, he gives 
the seventy-four standards then followed. These several standards 
he proposed to set aside and replace by standards each differing one 
hour, or 15° of longitude. 
While recommending this course, the Report sets forth that the 
change could only be regarded as a step towards the absolute uniform- 
ity of all time-pieces, and the Society passed resolutions, that abso- 
lute uniformity of time is desirable ; that the meridian six hours 
west of Greenwich should be adopted as the National Standard to be 
used in common on all railways and telegraphs, to be known as 
“Railroad and Telegraph Time ;” that after July 4th, 1880, such 
uniform Standard Time should be the legal standard for the whole 
country, and that the State and National Legislatures should be 
memorialized on the subject. 
Mr. Cleveland Abbe in this report alluded to the previous pro- 
ceedings of the Canadian Institute. 
The active sympathy of the Marquis of Lorne greatly aided the 
movement of Time-reform in its early stages. In 1879, in his 
official position as Governor-General, he had been the recipient of 
the papers published by the Canadian Institute, and had transmitted 
them to Great Britain, and through the Imperial Government to 
the several European centres. In 1880, it was learned that the 
