LONGITUDE AND TIME-RECKONING. 147 



which it contains shows that the subject we have been considering is 

 engaging the attention of eminent geographers in Europe : 



"A New First Meridian. — It is admitted by geographers that the present 

 variety of ' first meridians ' is extremely embarrassing; and not conducive to 

 accuracy. A good many proposals have been made recently for the establish- 

 ment of a common first meridian for all countries, but, as one might expect, 

 there is a want of agreement as to what hne should be chosen. The question 

 was taken up at the last International Congress of G-eography at Paris, and 

 among the contributions to the subject was a paper by M. BouthiUier de 

 Beaumont, President of the Geographical Society of Geneva. The subject was 

 brought on a former occasion before the Antwerp Geographical Congress, 

 where it was very thoroughly discussed by competent geographers. The 

 proposal, however, did not receive more than expressions of sympathy and 

 encouragement. To propose, as M. de Beaumont says, to take the meridian 

 of Greenwich or any other national meridian as the initial one, is not to advance 

 the question; rather, it leaves it in statu quo. Nor would it be a happy 

 solution to take the old meridian of Ferro, abandoned by the chief maritime 

 nations and presenting peculiar difficulties in its actual position. At the 

 Congress of Paris of 1875 Jerusalem was proposed, a proposal more creditable 

 to the heart than the head of the professor. Now M. de Beaumont asks: 

 ' Does there exist and can we find a meridian which, by its position on the 

 earth, is sufficiently determined to be taken as the initial meridian, solely on 

 account of its natural and individual character?' In reply he draws attention 

 to the meridian passing through Behring's Strait, as satisfying beyond any 

 other this demand. It is now the 150th meridian west of the island of Ferro, 

 or 30 deg. E., or 10 deg. E. of Paris. This meridian, M. de Beaumont main- 

 tains, can be very easily connected with works based on the principal meridians 

 of Ferro, Paris, Greenvoch, &c. It touches the extremity of the American 

 continent at Cape Prince of Wales; traverses, on the one hand, the whole 

 length of the Pacific without touching any land, and, on the other, all Eiirope, 

 through its centre, from the top of Spitzbergen, passing Copenhagen, Leipsic, 

 Venice and Rome ; then cuts the African continent from Tripoli to Cape Frio, 

 about 18 deg. S. lat. M. de Beaumont urges several advantages on behalf of 

 this new meridian. It would cut Europe into east and west, thus giving em- 

 phasis to a division which has been tacitly recognized for ages; it presents 

 about the largest possible terrestrial arc, from 79 deg. N. to 18 deg. S. lat., 

 97 degrees altogether, thus giving to science the longest continuous line of 

 land as a basis for astronomical, geodetic, and meteorological observations, and 

 other important scientific researches. Passing as it would through a great 

 number of States, it would become a really international meridian, as each 

 nation might estabUsh a station or observatory on the line of its circumference. 

 Such a meridian M. de Beaumont proposes to call mediator, on the analogy of 

 equator. This proposal of M. de Beaumont is strongly approved by the 

 eminent French geographer, M. E. Cortambert, and has received considerable 

 support from other continental geographers. Whether M. de Beaumont's 

 particular proposal be generally accepted or not, there can be no doubt of the 



