SUPPLEMENTARY PAPERS. 95 
on the ground of common utility and their conformability to the 
requirements of the case. 
In Rome, namely, it was proposed that the Longitudes departing 
from the custom observed, should be numbered around the whole 
earth from West to East, and this proposition was there accepted 
without further discussion ; so that nothing definite is known con- 
cerning the reasons on which this resolution was founded. In Wash- 
ington, on the other hand, this question was fully discussed. It was 
there expressly and forcibly urged that the resolution adopted at 
Rome was fraught with mischief for Cartography, that a departure 
from the numbering in use + 180° from the Initial Meridian, in no 
way offered any scientific advantage, and that the numbering of 
Longitude to 360°—the 24 hours of the ultimately asked-for change 
of Civic Time into proposed Universal Time—from want of practice, 
would cause great difficulties and complications. It resulted accord- 
ingly that the maintenance of the system in use, found no special 
effective opposition from any side. 
It was different with regard to the question whether Universal 
Time should commence with Greenwich, mid-day or mid-night. This 
question in Rome, as in Washington, was diseussed in detail. At 
Rome the preference was given to mid-day, as thereby the interests 
of astronomers and navigators were especially brought into promin- 
ence. At Washington, on the other hand, the seamen who were 
present at the Congress maintained that the new principle was of no 
actual importance for men of their calling, a view which was held 
also by the Russian naval’ men. 
It was also mentioned that already in the United States Marine it 
was a common practice as in ordinary civic life to count the com- 
mencement of the day from midnight. Consequently the argument 
came with greater weight in the Washington Congress that the trans- 
lation of the commencement of the Universal Day to Greenwich mid- 
day would cause considerable disturbance to Trade and Commerce in 
the most populous territories ef the world; while at these places dur- 
ing the most important business hours, in the period approaching mid- 
day, a double set of dates must come into use. In the presence of an 
argument of this character, the interests of the astronomer, which 
alone must suffer from the determination must naturally be placed in 
the background. So, as above remarked, the resolution to take mid- 
night at Greenwich as the commencent of the Universal Day was 
carried by a two-thirds majority, 7 countries abstaining from voting, 
2 voting negatively. 
During the discussions on the Universal day an opportunity was 
given to Mr. Sandford Fleming to submit his generally well-known 
opinions as to the form in which the common acceptance of Universal 
Time can take the place of the ordinary time affecting civil life which 
in each particular place depends on the rising and setting of the sun. 
7 
