40 UNIVERSAL OR COSMIC TIME. 



MEMORANDUM BY DR. DANIEL WILSON, PRESIDENT OF THE 

 CANADIAJN INSTITUTE, FOR TRANSMISSION WITH THE 

 SECOND ISSUE OF MR. SANDFORD FLEMING'S PAPERS, BY 

 HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL TO THE 

 IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT, APRIL 5th, 1880. 



Altliough the subject discussed in the accompanying papers has 

 not hitherto attracted general attention, it has to some extent met 

 with consideration in various quarters, and it is probable that at no 

 distant day public interest will be awakened to its importance. 



Uniform time has long been employed for scientific purposes ; it 

 has been used in recording simultaneoiis magnetic observations, in 

 geographical and astronomical calculations, in observing the move- 

 ment of tides, the track of meteors, the waves of earthquakes, and in 

 systematically recording meteorological phenomena. 



It is only of late years that the rapidity of communications by 

 Kailway, and the facilities afforded by the Telegraph, have created 

 new conditions which suggest and seem to demand some general sys- 

 tem of uniformity in reckoning Time in the ordinary occupations of 

 life. 



Those whose avocations bring them in contact with the inconve- 

 niences and complications which arise from our pi'esent notation, feel 

 that the necessity of some improvement will before long become 

 absolute. 



The question is recognized to be cosmopolitan in its character ; and 

 although everywhere the difficulty may in some degree be felt, it is 

 on the American Continent, in Canada and the United States, that 

 it is rapidly gaining marked prominence. 



A large amount of capital has been expended b)^ the Dominion of 

 Canada in the establishment of railways and telegraph lines, and the 

 Government is now appropriating one hundred millions of dollars 

 towards their construction to the Pacific Ocean. 



In a few years the railways proposed will be completed, and they 

 will extend over 75 degrees of longitude. The various clocks in the 

 intervening distances, by which the lines will be operated, and the 

 ordinary business of daily life carried on, will, under the present sys- 

 tem of reckoning Time, differ from point to point, until the maxim vxm 

 difference of about five hours is reached. Accordingly the geogra- 

 phical extent of territoxy, and the general advancement of the 

 Dominion of Canada, point to the necessity, at no remote period, of 

 seeking for some change in the present system of reckoning Time. 



The territory of the United States of Amei-ica extends from East- 

 port in Maine to the western confines of Alaska, localities differing 

 in longitude 100 degrees ; in time, 6 hours and 40 minutes. Between 



