SUPPLEMENTARY PAPERS. 57 
civilization, its consideration should be approached in a broad, liberal 
spirit. While it may be urged that the selection of any particular 
meridian is less important than the adoption of a common first meri- 
dian, care should be taken to consider the interests of all people con- 
cerned, or likely to be concerned, scrupulously avoiding offence to 
local prejudice or national vanity. On every account it is extremely 
desirable that an earnest effort should be made to seek for a solution 
to the problein. 
The unifications of initial meridians has been advocated in the 
interests of geography, astronomy and navigation. I shall accept all 
the arguments which have been advanced on behalf of these extremely 
important interests, and crave your indulgence while I submit addi- 
tional reasons for the establishment of a common prime meridian for 
all the world. 
I propose to direct your attention to arguments which spring from 
the relations of time and longitude and the rapidly growing necessity 
in this age for reform in time- reckoning. 
If we take into view the whole earth, we have at the same instant 
in absolute time, noon, mid-night, sun-rise, sun-set, and all interme- 
diate gradations of the day. The telegraph-system, which is gradu- 
ally spreading like a spider’s web over the surface of the globe, is 
practically bringing this view of the sphere before all civilized com- 
munities. It leaves no interval of time between widely separated 
places proportionate to their distances apart. It brings points 
remote from one another, enjoying all the different hours of day- 
light and darkness, into very close contact. Under our present 
system of notation, confusion is developed, and all count of time is 
thrown into disorder. 
The local civil day begins twelve hours before and ends twelve 
hours after the sun passes the meridian of a place. As the globe is 
constantly revolving on its axis, a fresh meridian is every moment 
coming under the sun. As a consequence, a day is always beginning 
somewhere and always ending somewhere. Each spot around the 
circumference of the sphere has its own day, and therefore there are 
during every diurnal revolution of the earth, an infinite number of 
local days, all beginning with a space of twenty-four hours, and each 
continuing twenty-four hours. These days overlap each other, and, 
theoretically, they are as perfectly distinct as they are infinite in 
number. There are no simultaneous days except on the same 
meridian, and as the different days are always in the various stages 
of advancement, difficulties must necessarily result in assigning the 
period when an event takes place. The telegraph may give ‘the exact 
local time of the occurrence, but it will be in disagreement with the 
local times on every other meridian around the “earth. An event 
occurring any one day may on the instant be announced somewhere 
the previous day, or somewhere else the following day. About the 
