October 17, 1884.] 



SCIENCE. 



377 



to the intimate intercourse of civilized peoples from 

 the consideration and adoption of the suggested com- 

 mon standard of time so far coincides with that of 

 this government as to lead it to accept an invitation 

 to participate in an international conference," etc., 

 and said that they were here to fix upon that meridian ; 

 that the delegates must have studied the matter be- 

 fore coming here; and that no one would be likely 

 to come unless he knew, or thought he knew, some- 

 thing about the matter. 



Most of the delegates then stated that they had 

 no power to bind or pledge their governments, but 

 only to recommend to them the decisions of the con- 

 ference. 



Mr. Fleming, one of the English delegates, called 

 the attention of the conference to the act of congress 

 which called them together; viz., — 



'" That the president of the United States be author- 

 ized and requested to extend ... an invitation to 

 appoint delegates . . . for the purpose of fixing upon 

 a meridian" etc., and said that the word 'recom- 

 mend ' was not used at all. 



There being, apparently, considerable doubt as to 

 just what they were there for, the conference ad- 

 journed over for four days to get further light on 

 the subject. 



At the third meeting, on Oct. 6, the pending reso- 

 lution of Mr. Rutherford was so modified as to define 

 the meridian of Greenwich as a standard meridian 

 for longitudes ; and it was then temporarily withdrawn 

 to give an opportunity for the French delegates to 

 introduce a resolution providing for a prime meridian 

 having a character of absolute neutrality, cutting no 

 great continent. 



Gen. Strachey said that the conference at Rome had 

 concluded that a prime meridian must pass through 

 an observatory of the first order ; and only those of 

 Berlin, Paris, Greenwich, and Washington fulfilled 

 this condition. 



Commander Sampson summarized the many points 

 necessary and desirable in a prime meridian; and, on 

 the side of convenience and economy, he made the 

 strong point, that seventy per cent of all the shipping 

 afloat now use the Greenwich meridian, and that the 

 cost of the plates now engraved for charts reckoning 

 from Greenwich was seventy-five per cent of all the 

 world's charts. To adopt any other meridian would 

 necessitate changing all these, which cost about ten 

 million dollars. 



Mr. Rutherford said that the Paris observatory 

 must soon be moved out of the city, and only senti- 

 ment kept it where it was ; while Greenwich observa- 

 tory was in an isolated park, secure from injurious 

 encroachment. 



Mr. Janssen defended the proposed neutral meri- 

 dian, saying, that, if that principle were rejected, it 

 would be useless for him to continue the discussion. 

 He went into a long defence of the plan, historical, 

 sentimental, and patriotic; giving the history of the 

 Isle of Ferro as a zero of longitudes, the great work 

 of the French in early days in astronomy, navigation, 

 and chart-making, and how many valuable charts they 

 now possessed, etc. The only point worth combating 



was the statement that the needs of the common 

 prime meridian were limited to geography or hy- 

 drography alone, and were entirely distinct from the 

 meridians for astronomy, geodesy, and topography, 

 which were local national affairs, and might just as 

 well have separate and independent meridians; in 

 this ignoring the principal objects of the conference. 



Professor Adams of Cambridge, England, said that 

 Mr. Janssen' s argument seemed to be a defence of the 

 Paris meridian rather than of a neutral meridian, and 

 to be based simply on motives of sentiment and pa- 

 triotism; that the question of convenience and least 

 change from present status was not touched upon. 

 Besides, why talk of a neutral meridian ? They were 

 not belligerents, but were all neutral, as scientific 

 men, or men looking for the greatest good to the 

 whole world, should be. If an entirely new meridian 

 be chosen, an observatory must be set up on it, and 

 connected carefully by telegraph with others, and all 

 existing longitudes changed. 



Mr. Janssen tried to insist upon the distinction 

 between astronomical and geographical longitudes, 

 and that such a high degree of accuracy was not 

 needed in the latter. 



Professor Adams showed that they must, in any 

 case, depend upon astronomical observations; that 

 even geodetic observations of high accuracy cannot 

 determine great differences of longitude exactly, on 

 account of the irregular figure of the earth. 



In accordance with a previous resolution, Professor 

 Newcomb, the superintendent of the American ephem- 

 eris, was invited to give his views on the question. 

 He said it would be impossible to select a meridian 

 absolutely neutral in Mr. Janssen' s sense, as it must 

 be on land, with an observatory upon it connected by 

 telegraph with others. He referred to the impossibil- 

 ity of connecting every newly determined longitude 

 directly with the principal meridian, but said that 

 each country or each region must have its secondary 

 meridian and observatory to connect to, and then the 

 whole system would receive systematic correction as 

 the accuracy of determining the longitude of this 

 secondary observatory was increased. He agreed 

 with Professor Adams that the proposals of the 

 French delegates were based purely on sentiment, 

 and that he should answer them just as the former 

 had done. 



Gen. Strachey said that longitude was longitude, 

 and as a geographer he must repudiate the idea of 

 first-class longitudes for astronomical purposes and 

 second or third rate geographical longitudes. 



At the session of the conference on last Monday 

 the question of a prime meridian was finally settled. 

 Mr. Fleming, the British delegate from Canada, op- 

 posed the pending resolution of Mr. Janssen for an ab- 

 solutely neutral meridian, because it would only add 

 another to those already used, and advocated that of 

 Greenwich on account of the overwhelming prepon- 

 derance in its present use over any other; while Dr. 

 Cruls of Brazil favored the neutral meridian. The 

 resolution was put to vote, and lost by a large majority. 



The original resolution to adopt Greenwich was 

 then introduced. Mr. Allen presented a resolution of 



