40 UNIVERSAL OR COSMIC TIME. 
MEMORANDUM BY DR. DANIEL WILSON, PRESIDENT OF THE 
CANADIAN INSTITUTE, FOR TRANSMISSION WITH THE 
SECOND ISSUE OF MR. SANDFORD FLEMING’S PAPERS, BY 
HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL TO THE 
IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT, APRIL dru, 1880. 
Although the subject discussed in the accompanying papers has 
not hitherto attracted general attention, it has to some extent met 
with consideration in various quarters, and it is probable that at no 
distant day public interest will be awakened to its importance. 
Uniform time has long been employed for scientific purposes ; it 
has been used in recording simultaneous magnetic observations, in 
geographical and astronomical calculations, in observing the move- 
ment of tides, the track of meteors, the waves of earthquakes, and in 
systematically recording meteorological phenomena. 
It is only of late years that the rapidity of communications by 
Railway, and the facilities afforded by the Telegraph, have created 
new conditions which suggest and seem to demand some general sys- 
tem of uniformity in reckoning Time in the ordinary occupations of 
life. 
Those whose avocations bring them in contact with the inconve- 
niences and complications which arise from our present notation, feel 
that the necessity of some improvement will before long become 
absolute. 
The question is recognized to be cosmopolitan in its character ; and 
although everywhere the difficulty may in some degree be felt, it is 
on the American Continent, in Canada and the United States, that 
it is rapidly gaining marked prominence. 
A large amount of capital has been expended by the Dominion of 
Canada in the establishment of railways and telegraph lines, and the 
Government is now appropriating one hundred millions of dollars 
towards their construction to the Pacific Ocean. 
In a few years the railways proposed will be completed, and they 
will extend over 75 degrees of longitude. The various clocks in the 
intervening distances, by which the lines will be operated, and the 
ordinary business of daily life carried on, will, under the present sys- 
tem of reckoning Time, differ from point to point, until the maximum 
difference of about five hours is reached. Accordingly the geogra- 
phical extent of territory, and the general advancement of the 
Dominion of Canada, point to the necessity, at’ no remote period, of 
seeking for some change in the present system of reckoning Time. 
The territory of the United States of America extends from East- 
port in Maine to the western confines of Alaska, localities differing 
in longitude 100 degrees ; in time, 6 hours and 40 minutes, Between 
