60 UNIVERSAL OR COSMIC TIME. 
It is held by those who have seriously considered the subject, that 
a solution of the problem which would be good for America would 
be advantageous for other countries. It is considered that in intro- 
ducing a reform in time-reckoning in North America the system 
should be such as would commend itself generally ; that it should be 
one which by its appropriateness and simplicity would have every 
prospect of being adopted ultimately throughout the world. 
A highly important feature of the movement is to employ every 
means to render the system generally acceptable, so that whenever 
the necessity may arise in any other community for its introduction 
it may be spontaneously adopted—a course calculated to secure 
ultimately complete uniformity in all countries. 
I shall give in brief an outline of a proposition for defining and 
regulating civil time which is favoured in many quarters in Canada 
and the United States of America :-~ 
1. It is proposed to establish one standard time which may 
be common to all people throughout the world, for communica- 
tion by land and sea, for all ordinary purposes, for synchronous 
observations, and for all scientific purposes. This standard 
time to be known as Cosmopolitan Time.* 
2. Cosmopolitan Time to be based on the diurnal revolutions 
of the earth as determined by the (mean) sun’s passage over one 
particular meridian to be selected as a Time-zero. 
3. The Time-zero to coincide with the Prime Meridian to be 
common to all nations for computing longitude. 
4. The Time-zero and Prime Meridian for the world to be 
established with the concurrence of civilized nations generally. 
5. Twenty-four secondary or standard Hour-meridians to be 
established, fifteen degrees or one hour distant from each other, 
the first being fifteen degrees from the Prime Meridian. 
6. The standard Hour-meridians to regulate time at all places 
on the earth’s surface. 
-7. The twenty-four standard Meridians to be denoted by 
symbols, and, preferably, by the letters of the English alphabet, 
which, omitting J and V, are twenty-four in number. The 
letters to be taken in their order from east to west. The Zero- 
meridian being lettered Z. 
8. The hour of the day at any place on the earth’s surface to 
be regulated by some one of the standard Meridians, generally 
by the standard nearest such place in longitude. 
9. It is proposed to distinguish that interval of time between 
two consecutive passages of the (mean) sun over the Prime 
Meridian by the term Cosmopolitan Day. 
10. The Cosmopolitan Day is designed to promote exactness 
in chronology, and is intended to be employed in connection 
* The term ‘‘ Cosmic” since suggested, commends itself. 
