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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



gress, accepted the responsibility of pre- 

 senting to his government a suggestion 

 for a conference at London. And thus 

 the plan which a few years before had 

 seemed hopeless of accomplishment was 

 brought within promise of fruition. 



the; confere;nce; at london 



In the summer of 1909 the British 

 government issued invitations to Austria- 

 Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, 

 Russia, Spain, and the United States to 

 send delegates to a conference to assem- 

 ble in London on November 16, with 

 power to agree upon details of the stand- 

 ard international map of the world. All 

 of the governments accepted except 

 Japan, and twenty-two delegates assem- 

 bled in the British Foreign Office, in the 

 council-room where Lord Salisbury had 

 been wont to hold the meetings of his 

 cabinet. 



The sitting of the conference was dig- 

 nified and impressive. The great square 

 chamber was furnished with a round 

 table, at which all the delegates were 

 seated within convenient range for dis- 

 cussion. There was a touch of old Eng- 

 land in the soft-coal fire, which dispelled 

 the chill of London in November, and the 

 bunch of quill pens spread before each 

 member was a reminder of the historic 

 documents that had been executed in 

 Britain's capital. 



Under the presidency of Col. S. C. N. 

 Grant, of the British Ordnance Office, 

 assisted by Col. C. F. Close, of the Gen- 

 eral Staf¥, the deliberations of the con- 

 ference were conducted not only with 

 courtesy, but with impartiality and fair- 

 ness. These officers had but one purpose 

 in view : to ascertain the wishes of a 

 majority of the delegates and secure such 

 an expression of opinion as would lead 

 to a unanimous conclusion. And in this 

 they were signally successful. 



In the circle sat men who had been 

 associated with the project since its be- 

 ginning, and who rightly felt a deep sense 

 of satisfaction in its fruition. Professor 

 Penck. the originator of the plan and 

 now the representative of the Emperor 

 William, was the leading figure, but he 



took his part with that scientific spirit 

 which effaces the personal element, and 

 a bystander unfamiliar with the past his- 

 tory of the plan would not have known 

 from anything which he said that it had 

 sprung from him. Across the table from 

 him sat Eduard Briickner, who, holding 

 the professorship at Vienna which had 

 been vacated by Penck's transfer to Ber- 

 lin, was the leading delegate from Aus- 

 tria. France was represented by several 

 eminent geographers, of whom Charles 

 Lallemand, a distinguished geodesist, 

 shared with Professor Penck a com- 

 manding position among the foreign 

 delegates. Around the table were many 

 others whose names are well known as 

 teachers and writers on geographical sub- 

 jects. The delegates from the United 

 States were Mr S. J. Kiibel, chief en- 

 graver of the U. S. Geological Survey, 

 and Mr Bailey Willis, geologist, of the 

 same service. 



]?RANce acce;pts the; gre;enwich meri- 

 dian AND e;ngi.and re;ciprocate;s 

 BY ACCEPTING the; mete;r 



The conference took up one by one 

 the proposals of the General Congress 

 and debated them in English, French, or 

 German, as the convenience of any indi- 

 vidual speaker prompted. There had evi- 

 dently been much preliminary discussion 

 at home, and there was a dominant pur- 

 pose to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion 

 which swept away all the international 

 differences that had previously prevented 

 agreement. The initial meridian of 

 Greenwich was adopted unanimously, 

 without debate. The metric system was 

 agreed to by the English and American 

 delegates, with the provision that the 

 scale of distances might also be stated in 

 terms of miles or of any other unit (such 

 as Russian versts) of the country pro- 

 ducing a part of the map. The accept- 

 ance of the metric scale extended also to 

 the statement of altitudes above sea. with 

 the proviso that the height in feet may 

 be given in parentheses after the number 

 in meters. The conventional symbols to 

 be used for representing water-courses, 

 roads, railroads, towns, cities, and the 



