TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 653 



time to -witness a magnificent outburst of Cotopaxi, 60 miles distant. The hot 

 ashes were wafted to Ohimborazo in such quantities as to cover the snow around 

 him, and to produce an etfect which he compares to the appearance of a newly- 

 ploughed field. 



It appears probable that we shall owe to America the solution of a question 

 which, even within the limited area of these islands, often occupies oiu: Courts of 

 Law, and troubles us in daily life. I mean a definition of civil time. We have 

 an extreme difference of time between Yarmouth and Valentia of about 48i 

 minutes ; but the merchant at San Francisco finds himself 3j hours behind his 

 correspondent in New York, and the consequence has been an irregular acknow- 

 ledgment of no less than seventy-five local standards of time on different railways 

 in the United States. These it is now proposed to reduce to five, of exactly one 

 hour interval, which would equally suit the Dominion of Canada. Mr. Sanford 

 Fleming, late Engineer-in-Chief of the Canada Pacific Railroad, advocates the 

 still bolder measure of adopting the meridian of 180°, as a meridian for railway 

 and telegraph time all over the woi-ld. It is not unworthy of this Section to aid 

 in the preparation of the public mind for the legal adoption of prime meridians in 

 this country at about ten-minute intervals. Thus Greenwich time might ride 

 from Yarmouth to Winchester ; Bath time from Winchester to Exeter, and so on ; 

 the first step towards which will be substituting meridians at 1^° interval, corre- 

 sponding to five minutes of time, for the unmeaning lines at 1° or 5° of angle, 

 which are drawn on school maps at present. 



I shall, perhaps, be accused of poaching on the manor of a brother President, if 

 I venture to allude to another subject which belongs rather to the Geological 

 Section. But a railway guide is surely a geographical manual, and in the American 

 Geological Railway Guide of Mr. Macfarlane, we have a model and example of 

 what may be done to disseminate knowledge, which I think worthy of passing 

 notice. This work tells the traveller, and the resident no less, the chief geological 

 characteristics of the neighbourhood of every railway station in the United States. 

 Is it extravagant to suppose that the same information, with the addition of the 

 name of the county, the height above the sea, the prevailing industry, the popula- 

 tion, the rainfall, the climate, and other constants, may be some day furnished by 

 our great companies to the intelligent strangers who spend so many weary minutes 

 in waiting at every station ? 



Turning now from a quarter on which I fear I hare nearly exhausted your 

 patience — from the West to the East. It is now nearly forty years since the corps 

 of Royal Engineers was first associated in the exploration of Palestine by the 

 employment of Captain Symonds, R.E., to determine the depression of the Dead 

 Sea. The recent completion of the great map of that country is a performance 

 whose luu'ivalled Biblical and topographical importance should not blind us to its 

 geographical interest. The first surveyed of all known lauds, it is also the last. 



Siloa's brook that flowed 

 Fast by the oracles of God 



is traced again, and the surprising local accuracy of the sacred writers established 

 upon testimony beyond dispute. 



The British survey, as j'ou are aware, has been limited to the country west of 

 the Jordan, an American Association having charged itself with the survey east of 

 that stream. This is not yet published ; but I trust that we shall have Irom Mr. 

 Laxirence Oliphant an account of a part of that little-known region, from which 

 he has lately returned. 



Operations of war have been in all ages fruitful of geographical knowledge. 

 Many an old soldier of Alexander, we may be sure, was cross-examined by 

 Eratosthenes ; many a centurion of Hadrian related his weary marches in Gaul or 

 Britain to Ptolemy, before those ancient geographers acquired the imperfect know- 

 ledge which served the world for so many centuries. The first legion that crossed 

 the Alps accomplished a feat as arduous as the passage of Shutargardan or the 



