UNIVERSAL OR COSMIC TIME. 15 



greatly aided in bringing about the important change carried into effect 

 a year ago. This Society is now directing attention to a reform of 

 scarcely less importance, the notation of the honrs of the day. At 

 the Buffalo convention in June last, this particular question received 

 prominent consideration in the address of the President, as well as in 

 the report of the special committee. '^ Since that date a correspondence 

 has taken place between the Secretary and the railway manas^ers iji 

 the United States and Canada. Already replies have been received 

 from the representatives of some sixty thousand miles of railway, 

 ninety-eight (98) per cent, of whom have given expression to their 

 sympathy with the movement, to abandon the old practice of halving 

 the day, designating the two sets of twelve hours by the abbreviations 

 A.M. and P.M., and ai'e prepared to adopt a simple notation of 1 to 

 24 in a single series. The great telegraph interests of the country 

 are likewise in full sympathy with it. The Pi'esident of the Western 

 Union Telegraph Company, Dr. Norwin Green, states that their 

 telegraphic traffic is equal to the transmission of forty-four million 

 messages a year, and the general ado[)tion of tlie 24 o'clock system 

 (as it has been designated), would be cordially welcomed by telegraph- 

 ers. It would reduce materially the risk of e]'rors, and to the com- 

 jKiny over which he presides, he says it would save the transmission 

 by telegraph of at least 150,U00,00U letters annually. 



The branch literature bearing on the two questions of Universal 

 Time and the establishment of a Prime Meridian, has been enriched 

 by a series of papers which have appeared during the past year in- 

 the InternatioiLcd Standard, a magazine published in Cleveland.. 

 Ohio. These papers are by the following gentlemen connected with . 



* In " Nature" (London) of November ]3th, the following appears :— " However long the 



" use of the 'a. m.' and 'p. m.' for distinguis;hlng the two hnlves of the civil day may survive, 



" it seems probable that the more rational method of countuig the hours of the day continu- 



" ously from midnight tlirough twenty-four hours to the midnight following, may before long 



" come into use for a variety of purposes for which it is well adapted, even if it should not yet 



" be generally employed. It seems proper, therefore, to consider in what way ordina; y watches 



" and clocks could be best accommodated to such a change in the mode of reckoning. To place 



'• twenty- four hours on one circle round the dial, instead of twelve hours, as at present, seems 



" the most natural change to make ; but in addition to a new dial, it would involve also some 



" alteration in construction, since the hour-hand would have to make one revolution oiilyinthe 



twenty-four hours instead of two. And thjre would be this further disadvantage, that the 



" hours being more crowded together, tlie angular motion of the hand in moving through the 



" space corresponding to an hour would be less — in fact, one-half of its present amount." The 



remedy pointed out in "Nature" is extremely simple. It is the same as that recommended by 



Committee on Standard Time of the American Society of Civil Engineers, who reported at 



Convention of the Society at Buffalo in June (1SS4) as follows :— " It is proposed to adapt 



2 



