Fune 18, 1885] 
NATURE 
[5] 
introduced into a question which ought to unite the votes 
of all interested. 
“Well, I say that considerations of economy and of use 
and wont ought not to blind us to the principles which 
should govern this question, and which can alone render 
its settlement universally acceptable and permanent. 
“But further, this argument of economy, and use, and 
wont, which is advanced as a reason of determinative 
force, has validity, it is true, for the majority for whom 
it is brought forward, but for them alone, and leaves for 
us exclusively the burden of change in habits, publica- 
tions, and maps. 
“ Seeing the report holds us of so light account in the 
balance, allow me briefly to recall the past and the 
present of our hydrography, and for this purpose I 
cannot do better than cite a few passages from a work 
communicated to me, and emanating from one of our 
foremost hydrographers. ‘France,’ says he, ‘created 
more than two centuries ago the oldest nautical ephemer- 
ides in existence. She was the first to conceive and 
execute the great geodetic operations having for their 
object the construction of maps civil and military, the 
measure of meridional arcs in Europe, America, and 
Africa. All these works were and are regulated by the 
meridian of Paris. Almost all the astronomical tables 
which the astronomers and mariners of the entire world 
make use of at this day are French, and calculated in 
reference to the meridian of Paris. As regards oceano- 
graphy, more particularly marine surveying, the precise 
methods employed at the present day by all the nations 
are of French origin, and our maps, all based on the 
meridian of Paris, bear names such as those of Bourgain- 
ville, La Pérouse, Fleurieu, Borda, d’Entrecasteaux, 
Beautemps Beaupré, Duperrey, Dumont d’Urville, 
Daussy—to mention but a small number of those who 
are no more. 
“ Our existing hydrographical collections count more 
than 4000 charts. Deducting from this number those 
which the progress of exploration has rendered no longer 
available, there remain about 2600 charts in use. 
“Of this number more than a half represent original 
French surveys which foreign nations have in great part 
reproduced. Of the remainder the general maps are the 
result of the labours of discussion carried out at the 
marine depot where all documents, French as much as 
foreign, were utilised, and relatively few of them are the 
expressions pure and simple of foreign labours. Our 
surveys are not limited to the coasts of France and its 
colonies. There is hardly a region on the globe for 
which we do not possess original labours: Newfoundland, 
the coasts of Guiana, of Brazil and La Plata, Madagascar, 
numerous points of Japan and China, 187 original charts 
relative to the Pacific Ocean. We must not omit men- 
tioning the fine work of our hydrographical engineers on 
the West coast of Italy, which was honoured by the 
International Jury with the grand medal of honour at the 
universal exhibition of 1867. The exclusive use by 
mariners of the meridian of Paris is grounded on con- 
siderations of a past of 200 years such as we have briefly 
recalled. 
“The adoption of another prime meridian would in- 
volve a change in the graduation of the 2600 charts of 
our hydrography, would involve a similar change in our 
maps for nautical instruction numbering over 600, and 
would of necessity entail a corresponding change in the 
connaissance des temps. 
“These are considerations deserving to be pondered. 
Well, if under these conditions the projected reform, in- 
stead of being inspired by the high principles which should 
govern this subject, is to take for its basis simply a regard 
for the use and wont of the largest number and their ex- 
emption from all sacrifice, reserving for us exclusively the 
burden of change and the abandonment of a dear and 
glorious past, are we not, then, justified in saying that a 
ppposal formulated in this sense would not be accept- 
able? 
“When at the end of the last century France esta- 
blished the metre, did she proceed in this way? Did she, 
as a measure of economy, and not to change anything in 
her habits, propose her foot-rule to the world? You know 
the facts. The truth is, we turned everything at home 
topsy-turvy—habits and material. And the measure 
chosen related, as it is, only to the dimensions of our 
globe, is so well disengaged from every French tie that in 
future ages the traveller who will trample on the ruins of 
our cities will be able to ask himself by what people was 
invented the metrical measure which his feet may chance 
to light on. 
“ Permit me to say that it is in this way a reform is 
established and rendered acceptable. It is by setting 
oneself the example of self-sacrifice and by completely 
effacing oneself in his work that resistance is disarmed 
and that a sincere love of progress is attested. 
“T hasten to say that 1 am persuaded that the proposal 
voted at Rome was neither made nor suggested by Eng- 
land, but I doubt whether, if accepted, it will render a 
true service to the English nation. An immense majority 
of the sailors of the globe navigate with English charts, 
it is true, but it is a homage of fact rendered to the great 
maritime activity of this nation. The day, however, when 
this supremacy, freely accorded, is changed into a 
supremacy official and imposed, it will undergo the 
vicissitudes of every human power, and this institution, 
which by its nature is of a purely scientific order, and to 
which we desire to assure a long and peaceable future, 
will become an object of keen and jealous rivalry among 
the nations. 
“All this shows how much wiser it would be to take for 
the origin of terrestrial longitudes a point determined by 
purely geographical considerations. On our globe nature 
has so distinctly separated the continent on which the 
great American nation are now developing themselves 
that from a geographical point of view there are but two 
possible solutions, both very natural. 
“The first solution would consist in returning to the 
solution of the ancients with a little modification, by 
placing our first meridian towards the Azores ; the second 
in releg.ting it to the immense straits separating America 
from Asia, towards the confines of the north, where the 
New World reaches out a hand to the Old. 
“These two solutions may be discussed, as they have 
often and again quite recently been by one of our ablest 
geologists, M. de Chancourtois. 
“ach of these meridians unites in it the fundamental 
conditions required by geography, and on which people 
have always been agreed, when national meridians were 
eliminated from the debates. As to the determination of 
the point adopted, the astronomical methods which are 
now so perfect would furnish it with as a great a degree 
of exactness as geography would require. 
“But what need of a special and costly determination 
of longitude for a point which may be placed arbitrarily 
provided it is comprised within certain limits, such as to 
satisfy the condition, for example, of passing by a strait 
or traversing an island? It is enough to mark out ap- 
proximately the point adopted. The position thus ob- 
tained will be referred to each of the great observatories, 
which will be related to one another and chosen for this 
purpose, and this list of relative positions will constitute 
the definition of the first meridian. As to a material 
sign on the globe, should such be wanted, a point by no 
means necessary, it will have to be placed in conformity 
with this definition, its place would have to be shifted till 
such conformity was obtained. 
(To be continued.) 
