SUPPLEMENTARY PAPERS. 35 
PROFESSOR PIAZZISMYTH, ASTRONOMER ROYAL FOR SCOTLAND, 
TO THE COLONIAL OFFICE, LONDON. 
Roya OBSERVATORY, EpinpurGH, Aug. 30, 1879. 
Srr,—I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter 
-of “ Augnst” 30, 1879, transmitting to me copies of a Canadian 
pamphlet on “ Time Reckoning and the selection of a common Meri- 
dian,” and intimating that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach will be so 
obliging as to transmit to Canada, through the Governor-General of 
the Dominion, any observations which I may have to make on the 
subject. I gladly accept Sir Michael Hicks Beach’s obliging offer, 
and will speedily send a letter for such desirable transmission. 
I am, &ce., &c., 
PIAZZI SMYTH, 
Astronomer-Royal for Scotland. 
‘To Edward Wingfield, Esq., Colonial Office, Whitehall, London. 
PROFESSOR PIAZZI SMYTH, ASTRONOMER ROYAL FOR SCOTLAND, 
TO THE COLONIAL OFFICE, LONDON. 
Roya OBSERVATORY, EDINBURGH, Sept. 5th, 2879. 
Srr,—In further answer to your letter of “ August” I have now 
the pleasure of sending you my remarks on the Time-reckoning Pam- 
phlet transmitted by the Governor-General of the Dominion, and re- 
quest you to be so good as to present them to Sir Michael Hicks 
Beach for his obliging promise to be so good as to forward them to 
‘the Secretary of the Canadian Institute through the Governor- 
General of the Dominion. 
Iam, &c. &e., 
PIAZZI SMYTH, 
Astronomer-Royat for Scotland. 
To Edward Wingfield, Esq, Colonial Office, Downing Street, London. 
Roya OBSERVATORY, EDINBURGH, Sept. 5th, 1879. 
Remarks on Mr. Sandford Fleming’s papers on Time Reckon- 
ing and the selection of a Prime Meridian :— 
These papers, transmitted now through the Governor-General 
of the Dominion, are before me for the second time; for they were 
sent first for an opinion, to be addressed to their author, many months 
ago by a mutual friend in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I praised them 
then for their good intentions on a matter of daily-growing impor- 
tance to mankind, but condemned them for the want of practicality 
and the unadvisableness of the particular method proposed to be em- 
ployed ; and my opinion is still very much the same. 
