SUPPLEMENTARY PAPERS. 77 



Extract (2) from the Protocols of Session, October 14th, referred to in the 

 foregoing Report, page 71. 



Mr. Sandford Fleming, Delegate of Great Britain, representing the Do- 

 minion of Canada : — I wish to offer some observations on the resolution before 

 the Conference, but I am unable to separate the particular question from the 

 general question. To my mind, longitude and time are so related that they 

 are practically inseparable, and when I consider longitude, my thoughts 

 naturally revert to time, by which it is measured. I trust, therefore, I may 

 be permitted to extend my remarks somewhat beyond the immediate scope of 

 the resolution. I agree with those who think that longitude should be 

 reckoned in one direction only, and I am disposed to favo\;r a mode of notation 

 differing in other respects from that commonly followed. 



If a system of universal time be brought into use, advantages would resiilt 

 from having the system of time and the system of terrestrial longitude in com- 

 plete harmony. The passage of time is continuous, and, therefore, I think 

 longitude should be reckoned continuously. To convey my meaning fully, 

 however, it is necessary that I should enter into explanations at some length. 

 The adoption of a Prime Meridian, common to all nations, admits of the 

 establishment of a system of reckoning time equally satisfactory to our reason 

 and our necessities. 



At present we are without such a system. The mode of notation followed 

 by common usage from time immemorial, whatever its applicability to limited 

 areas, when extended to a vast continent, with a net-work of lines of railway 

 and telegraph, has led to confusion and created many difficulties. Further, 

 it is insufficient for the purposes of scientific investigation, so marked a feature 

 of modern inquiry. 



Taldng the globe as a whole, it is not now possible precisely to define when 

 a year or a month or a week begins. There is no such interval of time as the 

 commonly defined day everywhere and invariable. By our accepted defini- 

 tion, a day is local ; it is limited to a single meridian. At some point on the 

 earth's surface one day is always at its commencement and another always 

 ending. Thus, while the eai-tli makes one diurnal revolution, we have con- 

 tinually many days in different stages of progress on our planet. 



Necessarily the hours and minutes partake of this normal irregularity. 

 Clocks, the most perfect in mechanism, disagree if they differ in longitude. 

 Indeed, if clocks are set to true time, as it is now understood, they must, at 

 least in theory, vary not only in the same State or County, but to some extent 

 in the same City. 



As we contemplate the general advance in knowledge, we cannot but feel 

 surprised that these ambiguities and anomalies should be found, especially as 

 they have been so long known and felt. In the early conditions of the human 

 race, when existence was free from the complications which civilization has led 

 to ; in the days when tribes followed pastoral pursuits and each community 

 was isolated from the other ; when commerce was confined to few cities, and 

 intercommunication between distant countries rare and difficult ; in those days 

 there was no requirement for a common system of uniform time. No incon- 

 venience was felt in each locality having its own separate and distinct reckon- 

 ing. But the conditions under which we live are no longer the same. The 

 application of science to the means of locomotion and to the instantaneous 

 transmission of thought and speech have gradually contracted space and anni- 

 hilated distance. The whole world is drawn into immediate neighbourhood 

 and near relationship, and we have now become sensible to inconveniences and 

 to many disturbing influences in our reckoning of time utterly unknown and 

 even unthought of a few generations back. It is also quite manifest that, as 

 civilization advances, such evils must greatly increase rather than be lessened, 

 and that the true remedy lies in changing our traditional usages in respect to 



