14 UNIVERSAL OR COSMIC TIME. 
recommended that the question of National Standard Time for use on 
Railways be deferred until it more clearly appeared that the public 
interests called for it. 
Mr. Dowd’s efforts to introduce a National Standard Time to meet 
the difficulties which were being developed were at the time imper- 
fectly appreciated. He, however, has had the satisfaction of seeing 
a scheme unanimously accepted, and put in operation, which in 
essential features does not materially differ from that which he ad- 
vocated ; and he himself attended at the meeting of the Ameriean 
Metrological Society, and took part in the proceedings when the 
details of the new Time arrangements were officially narrated. 
Prominent among those who have earnestly laboured to advance 
the movement of Time-reform is the distinguished President of Col: 
umbia College, New York. Dr. Barnard has from the first taken 
the deepest interest in the question, and few men have done so much 
to bring it to a practical issue. In the proceedings of the American 
Metrological Society for 1881 will be found a paper prepared by Dr. 
Barnard in 1872, and presented to an association which has since as- 
sumed an international character, and is known as the association for 
the Reform and Codification of the Laws of Nations. In this paper 
Dr. Barnard recommends the selection of ‘Greenwich as the Prime 
Meridian for the world, and he submits the views he held at that 
early date, which at this hour are of peculiar interest. He points 
out that “it is becoming a matter of greater importance every day 
that there should be established some universal rule for defining the 
calendar day for all the world.” 
I haye alluded to the valuable report of Professor Cleveland Abbe, 
of the United States Signal Service, to the Metrological Society, and 
I cannot deny myself the pleasure of acknowledging the services of 
the gentlemen with whom I have been associated on the special commit- 
tee on Standard Time of the American Society of Civil Engineers, 
Mr. Charles Paine, of New York ; Mr. Theodore N. Ely, of Altoona, 
Pennsylvania ; Mr. J. M. Toucey, of the Hudson River Railway ; 
Professor Hilgard, Coast Survey, Washington ; Professor T. Egleston, 
of Columbia College ; General T. G. Ellis, of Hartford, now unfor- 
tunately deceased, and Mr. John Bogart, Secretary of the Society, 
The American Society of Civil Engineers, since meeting in Mon- 
treal, in 1881, has made persistent and continuous efforts in the 
common interest to advance the movement of Time-reform, having 
