14 UNIVERSAL OB, COSMIC TIME. 



recommended that the question of ISTational Standard Time for use on 

 FCailways be deferred until it more clearly appeared that the public 

 interests called for it. 



Mr. Dowd's efforts to introduce a National Standard Time to meet 

 the difficulties which were being developed were at the time imper- 

 fectly appreciated. He, however, has had the satisfaction of seeing 

 a scheme unanimously accepted, and put in operation, which in 

 essential features does not materially differ from that which he ad- 

 vocated ; and he himself attended at the meeting of the American 

 Metrological Society, and took part in the proceedings when the 

 details of the new Time arrangements were officially narrated. 



Prominent among those who have earnestly laboured to advance 

 the movement of Time-reform is the distinguished President of ^Col- 

 umbia College, ISTew York. Dr. Barnard has from the first taken 

 the deepest interest in the question, and few men have done so much 

 to bring it to a practical issue. In the proceedings of the American 

 Metrological Society for 1881 will be found a paper prepared by Dr. 

 Barnard in 1872, and presented to an association which has since as- 

 sumed an international character, and is known as the association for 

 the Reform and Codification of the Laws of Nations. In this paper 

 Dr. Barnard recommends the selection of Greenwich as the Prime 

 Meridian for the world, and he submits the views he held at that 

 early date, which at this hour are of peculiar interest. He points 

 out that "it is becoming a matter of greater importance every day 

 that there should be established some universal rule for defining the 

 calendar day for all the world." 



I have alluded to the valuable report of Professor Cleveland Abbe, 

 of the United States Signal Service, to the Metrological Society, and 

 I cannot deny myself the pleasu.re of acknowledging the services of 

 the gentlemen with whom I have been associated on the special commit- 

 tee on Standard Time of the American Society of Civil Engineers, 

 Mr. Charles Paine, of New York ; Mr. Theodore N. Ely, of Altoona, 

 Pennsylvania ; Mr. J. M. Toucey, of the Hudson River Railway j 

 Professor Hilgard, Coast Survey, Washington ; Professor T. Egleston, 

 of Columbia College ; General T. G. Ellis, of Hartford, now unfor- 

 tunately deceased, and Mr. John Bogart, Secretary of the Society, 



The American Society of Civil Engineers, since meeting in Mon- 

 treal, in 1881, has made persistent and continuous efforts in the 

 common interest to advance the movement of Time-reform, having 



