98 UNIVERSAL OR COSMIC TIME. 
United States of North America, have come to an understanding, and 
m other countries, such as Germany and Italy, the like result may 
be looked for, as the same Meridian is already there legally in- 
troduced in the preparation of the Hydrographic Charts. Possibly 
France, out of national feeling, may for some time appear as 
holding back. Eventually, however, it may be looked for, that regard 
for the common good, and for the actual interests of its own naviga- 
tion, may cause the Government of that country to make the unifica- 
tion complete. We may, therefore, regard the chief object of the 
Washington Conference, namely, the establishment of the First 
Meridian, from which all the remaining questions are more or less 
natural consequences, as satisfactorily solved. 
Possibly the introduction of Universal Time may experience greater 
difficulties in the administration of commercial institutions, as this inno- 
vation will act upon a numerous class of people, and awaken new ideas 
on questions with which they have had little occasion to make them- 
selves familiar. In the meantime, according to the opinion of men 
capable of appreciating these difficulties, at least in Russia, where 
there is great extent in Longitude, besides where the ideas over the 
differences of Time Notation are more complicated than elsewhere, 
they are less important than at the first glance they would appear to 
be. It is to be expected that at the present time the constantly re- 
peated Congresses on Railway, Post and Telegraph Administration 
will soon occupy themselves with this’ matter, and sustained by the 
authority of the Washington Congress, will call into practice the 
Resolutions in this respect which were passed there. 
Much earnest reflection, on the other hand, must be given to the 
desire expressed at the meeting, that Astronomical Time Reckoning 
should be brought in accord with the commencement of the day in 
civil life. 
In this matter astronomers have not simply to abandon a custom 
of long standing, and consequently to make conditional changes of 
practice established for many years, but at the same time astronomical 
chronology is disturbed, which it is easily understood, must exercise 
a marked effect on the comprehension of all problems bearing upon 
motion. Without doubt, the astronomer must make a great sacrifice 
for the fulfilment of this desire; but in reality this sacrifice is not 
greater than that entailed on our forefathers, when they passed from the 
Julian to the Gregorian Notation of Time, or when they altered the 
commencement of the year : a sacrifice of convenience, by which we 
yet suffer when it becomes necessary to refer to phenomena of remote 
dates. At this period we must the less stand in fear of a like sacri- 
fice, when by such means an acknowledged existing non-accord be- 
tween science and ordinary life can be set aside: a non-accord which 
it is true in individual cases does not press heavily on the astronomer, 
but which is a constant source of inconvenience for non-professional 
