58 UNIVERSAL OR COSMIC TIME. 
period when one month or year passes into another month or year, 
an occurrence may actually take place in two different months, or in 
two different years, according to local reckoning. 
It will be readily conceded that this system is extremely unscien- 
tific, that it possesses all the elements of confusion, and produces a 
degree of ambiguity which cannot long be tolerated, that as time rolls 
on, it will lead to grave complications in social and commercial affairs, 
that it will produce serious errors in chronology, that it will lead to 
litigation, and result generally in difficulties of various kinds. Ac- 
cording to our present system there can be no absolute certainty with 
regard to time unless the precise geographical position be specified as 
an important element of the date. It is evident that it will be ex- 
ceedingly inconvenient and troublesome when rapid intercourse be- 
comes universal te bring the times of different countries and localities 
into agreement ; and that the necessity for doing so by additions or 
deducticns for differences in longitude, will undoubtedly clog the 
ordinary business of the world. 
It is proposed to obviate the difficulty by a system of cosmopolitan 
time-reckoning, the chief peculiarity of which is the adoption of one 
particular meridian as a standard time-zero, and by an extremely 
simple arrangement regulating the times at all places on the globe by 
a direct reference to the common standard. It is obvious that the 
world’s time-zero should coincide with the prime meridian to be used 
in common by all nations for reckoning terrestial longitudes. 
I shall proceed to submit special and more urgent reasons for the 
selection of a common initial Meridian and Time-zero. I shall con- 
fine my observations to the case of North America, a country with 
which I am most familiar, but the remarks I shall venture to snbmit 
will doubtless apply to other great divisions of the earth’s surface. 
The gigantic system of railways and telegraphs which has been 
established in America, has developed social and commercial condi- 
tions which never previously existed in the history of the human 
race. These conditions have affected the relations of time and dis- 
tance in a manner which shows that the system of notation which 
we have inherited is defective, that it leads to confusion, causes loss 
of time, and disturbs the arrangements of travellers and business 
men. that it frequently results in loss of life, and leads to difficul- 
ties of various kinds, that under the circumstances which have fol- 
lowed the extensive employment of steam and electricity as means 
of rapid communication, it is generally inappropriate. 
This question has therefore become a matter of great public import- 
ance, and attention is seriously directed to the simplest and best 
means of removing an impediment to commerce and general inter- 
course. 
The system which we follow, and which has been followed for ages, 
was quite unobjectionable half a century ago, when the electric tele- 
