84 UNIVERSAL OR COSMIC TIME. 
THE RESOLUTIONS OF THE WASHINGTON MERIDIAN 
CONFERENCE. 
BY OTTO STRUVE, 
DiRecroR OF THE IMPERIAL ASTRONOMICAL ORSERVATORY, PuLrowa, Russia. 
[Translated from the German, published in St. Petersburg, 1885.} 
It has been felt as a positive evil, for a long time, throughout the 
civilized world, and especially with geographers and navigators, that in 
different countries the degrees of geographical longitude are referred 
to different initial meridians. This multiplication of initial meridians 
to which, as they are in prominence, these lines of longitude are 
adapted, and which in each particular country correspond to the 
most important observatories, not only causes great complications 
by the contemporary use in different countries of the several pub- 
lished geographical maps, but is likewise for navigators a source of 
error which can easily lead to mischievous results, and indeed has so 
led to them. Therefore, for centuries the desire has been very widely 
entertained for the common acceptance by all nations of one and the 
same Meridian as the starting point for the enumeration of the lines 
of Longitude, by which means this evil would be removed. In the 
programme of the first Geographical Congress, proposed to be held at 
Antwerp, in the summer of 1870, public attention was specially 
directed to this question, as the most important subject for considera- 
tion ; indeed to a certain extent as the chief object to be submitted to 
the Congress. On account of the German-French war, unfortunately 
the Congress called for that year was not held; and although since 
that date the same question has been the subject of preparatory dis- 
cussion in later Congresses and Public Conferences, nevertheless the 
tirst decided advance in the matter was through the Congress of 
Delegates of almost every civilized country in the world, called to- 
gether in October of last year, in Washington, by the Government of 
the United States of North America. The most important of the 
Resolutions adopted at this International Conference we design here 
somewhat closely to discuss. 
It is proper to remark, that for a long period with us in Russia 
preparatory measures have been taken in the same direction as that 
which at the Washington Conference was suggested to be followed 
by the whole world. As a proof, it may be said that Mr. Struve, 
shortly after the successful establishment of the Chief Observatory 
in Pultowa, in the most positive manner pronounced against the 
establishment of a special First Meridian in Russian Cartography. 
In accordance with this view, in 1845-44 he organized the great 
Chronometer Expedition, by which the difference of Longitude be- 
tween Pultowa and Greenwich was established with the utmost pre- 
cision, so that in Russia we were in a position to lay down all lines 
of Longitude, determined or to be determined, with perfect correct- 
