124 TIME-RECKONING. 



Among the several objects which the scheme of cosmopolitan time 

 has in view^ not the least important is to extend to the world similar 

 advantages to those which have been conferred on Great Britain by 

 the general adoption of uniform time since the commencement of the 

 railway era. 



Meteorologists have felt the necessity of some general scheme of 

 reckoning by non-local time, such as that now proposed. The enor- 

 mous number of meteorological observations recorded in every part 

 of the world are of but little value until accurate allowances are 

 made for the differences in local time. The immense labour involved 

 will be understood when the number of stations and the number of 

 daily and hourly observations are considered. Accordingly, it will 

 be seen that meteorological science would derive great advantages 

 from the general adoption of uniform time. 



Navigators are required to employ a standard time to enable them 

 from day to day, when on long voyages, to compute their longitude. 

 For this purjjose it is a practice with ships to carry the local time of 

 the national observatory of the country to which they respectively 

 belong. For example : French ships reckon their longitude by Paris 

 time ; British ships by Greenwich time. Cosmopolitan time would 

 serve precisely the same purpose as a, standard for geographical 

 reckoning, and it would be some advantage to the marine of the 

 world to have a uniform standard established — the common property 

 of all nations, and in common use by land and water everywhere. 

 It has already been said that the telegraph provides the means of 

 securing perfect accuracy at all stations, however remote; indeed, 

 through this agency, time-keepers may be made to beat time synchro- 

 nously all over the globe. Already the length of telegraph lines in 

 operation approaches 400,000 miles; and we are warranted in believ- 

 ing that ultimately the means of instantaneous communication will 

 ramify through every habitable country, and find its way to every 

 port of commercial importance. 



I take the ground that we have entered upon a remarkable period 

 in the history of the human race. Discoveries and inventions con- 

 tinue to crowd upon each other in almost magical succession, and 

 who can tell what progress will be made within the coming fifty 

 years 1 Steam and electricity are really narrowing the limits of the 

 world. Lines of telegraph and steam communications, the creations 

 of but yesterday, are girdling the earth and bringing the most distant 

 countries into close neighbourhood. In a few years the wire and the 



