UNIVERSAL OR COSMIC TIME. 7 



attempts made since the establisliment of the electro-magnetic tele- 

 graph to make the notation of time synchronous. While pointing 

 out that this result had been obtained in Great Britain through 

 the efforts of Professor Airy, Mr. Cleveland Abbe gave a list of the 

 various observatories on this continent which are in possession of the 

 necessary apparatus and force proper to furnish astronomically accu- 

 rate time by telegraph. Writing in February, 1880, while giving 

 the resolution adopted by the society, recommending the adoption 

 of accura|;e timii by telegraph from an established astronomical ob- 

 servatory, Mr. Cleveland Abbe points out that the subject of accu- 

 rate time had been taken up by the Horological Bureau of the 

 Winchester Observatory of Yale College, and that the most perfect 

 apparatus had been received for the purpose of distributing New 

 York time with the highest degree of imiformity and accuracy. 



Mr. Cleveland Abbe's own remarks on the subject are of high 

 value. He forcibly points out the difficulties and inconveniences un- 

 der which railway operations in America labour from the want of a 

 proper system of time. To show this fact in greater force, he gives 

 the seventy-four standards then followed. These several standards 

 he proposed to set aside and replace by standards each differing one 

 hour, or 15° of longitude. 



While recommending this course, the Eeport sets forth that the 

 change could only be regarded ag,a step towards the absolute uniform- 

 ity of all time-pieces, and the Society passed resolutions, that abso- 

 lute uniformity of time is desirable ; that the meridian sis hours 

 west of Gi-eenwich should be adopted as the ISTational Standard to be 

 used in common on all railways and telegraphs, to be known as 

 "Railroad and Telegi'aph Time;" that after July 4th, 1880, such 

 uniform Standard Time should be the legal standard for the whole 

 country, and that the State and National Legislatures should be 

 memorialized on the subject. 



Mr. Cleveland Abbe in this report alluded to the previous pro- 

 ceedings of the Canadian Institute. 



The active sympathy of the Marquis of Lome greatly aided the 

 movement of Time-reform in its early stages. In 1879. in his 

 official position as Governor-General, he had been the recipient of 

 the papers published by the Canadian Institute, and had transmitted 

 them to Great Britain, and through the Imperial Government to 

 the .several European centres. In 1880, it was learned that the 



