54 UNIVERSAL OR COSMIC TIME. 
from Greenwich (or the sryns + or —).* The first meridian pro- 
posed by Sandford Fleming, 180° from that of Greenwich, according 
to the present opinion of Otto Struve, offers the following points of 
pre-eminence : 
1. “It passes through no continent excepting the eastern end of 
North Asia, which is inhabited only by a not numerous and uncivil- 
ized tribe, the Tschuktschen. 
2. “It closely coincides with that same meridian upon which the 
seamen, according to custom, must change the date of a day.t The 
change of a day’s date would accordingly coincide with that of the 
Cosmopolitan Meridian. 
3. “It changes nothing in the practice of the majority of seamen 
and geographers, with the exception of the addition of 12 hours or 
180° to all longitudes. 
4, “Tt oceasions no change in the calculation of the ephemerides 
in most general use by seamen, namely, those of the British Nautical 
Almanac, except the simple transfer of mid-day to mid-night or vice 
versa. 
5. “The great differences which would exist between Cosmopolitan 
and Local Time by the acceptance of this first meridian by the inhabi- 
tants of almost all civilized lands would remove all misunderstandings 
and uncertainties, under different circumstances as to whether Cosmo- 
politan or Local was intended to be acted upon.” 
Upon these grounds Herr Otto Struve, of the Academy of Science 
of St. Petersburg, is willing to recommend for common acceptance 
the meridian 180° west of Greenwich as the first meridian. 
By this opinion the second of Fleming’s submitted questions 
obtains its solution. 
With regard to the questions submitted by Mr. Fleming in the 
general form, as a starting point for further discussion on the intro- 
duction for all countries of a common Time-reckoning the Pulkova 
astronomer remarks, that at present from the various customs and 
interests of different countries, it must be received with hesitation. 
* But it would be easy to remedy this inconvenience, if according to the example of. Prof, 
A, Auwers, in whose praiseworthy contribution to the Geographical Year Book VIII. (1880, pp. 
303-310), ‘‘Geographical Longitudes and Latitudes of 144 Observatories,” all the longitudes from 
Greenwich are numbered easterly through the full circumference of the circle. Also Prof. C. 
Bruhns has in his report on Point 33 of the Programme of the Second Meteorological Congress at 
Rome, 1879, in which he proposes universally to accept the Meridian of Greenwich for Meteoro- 
logical Maps, laid it down as indispensable, that by the acceptance of any first meridian what- 
soever, the longitudes run in one direction only, and indeed be reckoned from the Bast. The 
computation in different directions easily leads to misunderstanding and furnishes cause for 
complications, 
+On a ship which, from the East (America), sails to the West (Asia or Australia), and 
reckons its time according to the mean tiine of Greenwich, they count from the meridian 180° 
from Greenwich. If, for example, on 27th July, Greenwich is at mid-night, and then begins the 
date of the 28th July, it is no more than mid-day cn the 27th July, and they must, in order to 
aecord with the Greenwich date, then move forward its date one day from 27th to 28th. Another 
ship, which sails from the West (Asia or Australia) to the East (America), and equally reckons 
the time from Greenwich, if Greenwich on the 27th July is at no more than mid-day, npou the 
wneridian 180° from Greenwich it is already mid-night of the 28th July, and they must, inorder 
again to come in accord with the Greenwich date, put back its date a day, thus to count the 
sane date twice over. m 
