SUPPLEMENTARY PAPERS. a7 
Extract (2) from the Protocols of Session, October 14th, referred to in the 
foregoing Report, page 71. 
Mr. Sandford Fleming, Delegate of Great Britain, representing the Do- 
minion of Canada:—I wish to offer some observations on the resolution before 
the Conference, but I am unable to separate the particular question from the 
general question. To my mind, longitude and time are so related that they 
are practically inseparable, and when I consider longitude, my thoughts 
naturally revert to time, by which it is measured. I trust, therefore, I may 
be permitted to extend my remarks somewhat beyond the immediate scope of 
the resolution. I agree with those who think that longitude should be 
reckoned in one direction only, and I am disposed to favour a mode of notation 
differing in other respects from that commonly followed. 
If a system of universal time be brought into use, advantages would result 
from having the system of time and the system of terrestrial longitude in com- 
plete harmony. ‘The passage of time is continuous, and, therefore, I think 
longitude should be reckoned continuously. To convey my meaning fully, 
however, it is necessary that I should enter into explanations at some length. 
The adoption of a Prime Meridian, common to all nations, admits of the 
establishment of a system of reckoning time equally satisfaetory to our reason 
and our necessities. 
At present we are without such a system. The mode of notation followed 
by common usage from time immemorial, whatever its applicability to limited 
areas, when extended to a vast continent, with a net-work of lines of railway 
and telegraph, has led to confusion and created many difficulties. Further, 
it is insufficient for the purposes of scientific investigation, so marked a feature 
of modern inquiry. 
Taking the globe as a whole, it is not now possible precisely to define when 
a year or a month or a week begins. There is no such interval of time as the 
commonly defined day everywhere and invariable. By our accepted defini- 
tion, a day is local ; it is limited to a single meridian. At some point on the 
earth’s surface one day is always at its commencement and another always 
ending. Thus, while the earth makes one diurnal revolution, we have con- 
tinually many days in different stages of progress on our planet. 
Necessarily the hours and minutes partake of this normal irregularity. 
Clocks, the most perfect in mechanism, disagree if they differ in longitude. 
Indeed, if clocks are set to true time, as it is now understood, they must, at 
least in theory, vary not only in the same State or County, but to some extent 
in the same City. 
As we contemplate the general advance in knowledge, we cannot but feel 
surprised that these ambiguities and anomalies should be found, especially as 
they have been so long known and felt. In the early conditions of the human 
race, when existence was free from the complications which civilization has led 
to ; in the days when tribes followed pastoral pursuits and each community 
was isolated from the other ; when commerce was confined to few cities, and 
intercommunication between distant countries rare and difficult ; in those days 
there was no requirement for a common system of uniform time. No incon- 
venience was felt in each locality having its own separate and distinct reckon- 
ing. But the conditions under which we live are no longer the same. The 
application of science to the means of locomotion and to the instantaneous 
transmission of thought and speech have gradually contracted space and anni- 
hilated distance. The whole world is drawn into immediate neighbourhood 
and near relationship, and we have now become sensible to inconveniences and 
to many disturbing influences in our reckoning of time utterly unknown and 
even unthought of a few generations back. It is also quite manifest that, as 
civilization advances, such evils must greatly increase rather than be lessened, 
and that the true remedy lies in changing our traditional usages in respect to 
