212 The Smithsonian Institution 



forth a result which was of great importance to the entire 

 country; this was the inauguration of "time service" sys- 

 tems. 



Although the transmission of time signals from the 

 Greenwich Observatory to the city of London was suc- 

 cessfully accomplished a few years after the introduction 

 of the electro-magnetic telegraph in 1844, the service in 

 Great Britain was confined to a limited area during the 

 next twenty-five years. 



The British Astronomer Royal in 1869 stated: "The time 

 signals pass, amongst other places, to the chief London of- 

 fices of the Electric and International Telegraph Company, 

 and thence this company sends signals automatically to about 

 twenty of the chief towns of England, Ireland, and Scotland. 

 The signals are also thus sent to the principal London rail- 

 way stations." 1 



In America the Naval Observatory in Washington, the 

 observatory of Harvard College, and Doctor Benjamin A. 

 Gould, of Albany, had prior to 1 869 sent out time signals for 

 short distances, "but only in a tentative and discontinuous 

 fashion." 



Late in that year Mr. Langley, as Director of the Allegheny 

 Observatory, submitted a proposal " for regulating from this 

 observatory the clocks of the Pennsylvania Central and other 

 railroads associated with it." Upon the Pennsylvania Sys- 

 tem, then comprising over 2500 miles of railroad east and 

 west of Pittsburg, over 300 telegraph offices were located. 

 In the year 1870 Mr. Langley inaugurated the system by 

 which accurate time signals were communicated automatically 

 twice daily to each of these offices, and "eventually some 

 8000 miles of railway were run by this single Allegheny 



1 See letter to Mr. S. P. Langley, quoted in circular of December I, 1869, issued by 



Allegheny Observatory. 



