Appendix. 371 
be well if, in consequence, it could be broken through and the Civil 
reckoning substituted. Uniformity in nomenclature and modes of 
reckoning in all matters reiating to time, space, weight, measures, 
etc., is of such vast and paramount importance in every relation of 
life as to outweigh every consideration of technical convenience or 
custom. The only disadvantage to astronomers of using the Civil 
reckoning is this—that their observations being chiefly carried on 
during the night, the day of their date will, in this reckoning, 
always have to be changed at midnight, and the former and latter 
portions of every night’s observations will belong to two differently 
numbered civil days of the month. There is no denying this to be 
an inconvenience. Habit, however, would aileviate it; and some 
inconveniences must be cheerfully submitted to by all who resolve 
to act on general principles. All other classes of men, whose occupa- 
tions extend to the night as well as day, submit to it, and find 
their advantage in so doing. — Sir John Herschel’s Treatise on 
Astronomy—Third Edition. 
IT. Much earnest reflection, on the other hand, must be given to 
the desire expressed at the meeting, that Astronomical Time 
Reckoning should be brought in accord with the commencement 
of the day in civil life. In this matter, astronomers have not 
simply to abandon a custom of long standing, and consequently to 
make conditional changes of practice established for many years, 
but, at the same time, astronomical chronology is disturbed, which 
is easily understood, must exercise a marked effect on the com- 
prehension of all problems bearing upon matter. Without doubt, 
the astronomer must make a great sacrifice for the fulfilment of 
this desire; but, in reality, this sacrifice is not greater than that 
entailed on our forefathers when they passed from the Julian to 
the Gregorian Notation of Time, or when they altered the com- 
mencement of the year: a sacrifice of convenience by which we 
yet suffer when it becomes necessary to refer to phenomena of 
remote dates. At this period, we must the less stand in fear of a 
like sacrifice, when by such means an acknowledged existing non- 
accord between science and ordinary life can be set aside: a non- 
accord which, it is true in individual cases, does not press heavily 
on the astronomer, but which is a constant source of inconvenience 
for non-professional astronomers who are desirous of making use 
of astronomical information. And in such respect, this sacrifice 
ceases so to be considered and is transformed into an act of public 
utility with regard to all astronomical details which stand in clear 
relationship with the outer world in which almost daily conflicts 
come to the surface between the different designations of dates. 
Conflicts among others which are even injurious to astronomical 
