72 UNIVERSAL OR COSMIC TIME. 
5. The zero of the hours is the moment of mean solar passage on 
the anti-Prime Meridian. The first hour is at the moment of mean 
solar passage on the Meridian 15° west of the anti-Prime Meridian ; 
the second and the remaining hours of the Universal Day come in 
turn at the solar passage on successive Meridians 15° of longitude 
apart, each Hour-meridian being an exact multiple of 15° from zero. 
Thus a series of twenty-four Hour-meridians are practically deter- 
mined around the globe, corresponding with the twenty-four hours of 
the Universal Day. A principle of uniformity will consequently be 
secured when the system of regulating civil time by Hour-standards 
comes to be adopted in other countries. It has already been acted 
upon in Canada and the United States with signal success. 
I have already stated that the principle of Universal Time was 
adopted by the vote of twenty-three nations, and the division shows 
that while the representatives of two nations abstained from voting, 
no negative vote was cast against it. The recognition now given by 
authority to this new mode of Time-reckoning is of great importance. 
To my mind, it is far-reaching in its consequences, and obviously a 
step towards the unification of Time throughout the world. It will 
doubtless depend greatly on circumstances when and to what extent 
this new system will be introduced into civil life. No arbitrary line 
can be drawn to prescribe its applicability. It is only from use and 
convenience that the practical limit will be found. In course of 
years the uses and advantages of Universal Time will be better un- 
derstood, and that which to this generation may appear strange and 
extraordinary, to the one succeeding may be regarded as regular 
and normal. 
I trust I may be allowed to state that the principles of Universal 
Time adopted by the Conference are identical in character with those 
set forth in some papers which were published in Canada six years 
back. It was the Council of the Canadian Institute, Toronto, who 
took the initiative in bringing the subject before the world in 1879. 
This body memorialized the then Governor-General, Lord Lorne, on 
the subject, submitting documents on Time-reckoning and the selec- 
tion of a Prime Meridian to be common to all nations. It was 
through His Excellency’s official and personal weight and influence 
that copies of these papers were brought under the notice of the 
Imperial Government. Through the intervention of the Imperial 
Government they were submitted to the Governments of the civilized 
nations, and became known to men of science and high reputation. 
His Excellency evinced a deep interest in the question, and under 
his distinguished auspices the attention of Scientific Societies in 
Europe was first awakened to the subject. 
More recently the Canadian Institute appointed a Delegate to the 
International Geographical Congress, held at Venice in 1881, to pro- 
