SCIENCE 
AN ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL PUBLISHED WEEKLY. 
Vérité sans peur. 
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.: THE SCIENCE COMPANY. 
FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 1884. 
COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 
Tue thoughts and actions of young men of 
‘intellectual strength, in whom is vested the 
future fate of scientific progress in this coun- 
‘try, are worth attention, and are of the deep- 
est interest to those who are, or soon -will be, 
no longer explorers of new fields. The meet- 
‘ing last week in New York, of the new society 
-of naturalists, composed almost wholly of 
young men, was remarkable for the force and 
directness of the discussions, and the absence 
-of pointless and wearisome talk. It became 
plain that we have men capable of the best 
work, and that we are preparing for a brilliant 
future of investigation, whenever the instru- 
‘mentalities necessary for fullest success are 
‘sufficient. The spirit of independence, and 
the disregard of purely personal influence, were 
‘as great as could be desired. All propositions, 
from whatever source, met with an equal and 
-critical treatment ; and no clique or locality had 
‘the slightest claim for consideration. Phila- 
-delphia was best represented ; while there was 
-a striking absence of delegates from Wash- 
‘ington, New Haven, and Cambridge. 
Tue International conference for fixing upon 
‘a universal prime meridian and a universal 
system of time has at length been called by 
the State department to meet in Washington, 
‘Oct. 1, 1884. Diplomatic proceedings are 
always expected to go on with a certain dig- 
_-nified leisure; but the arrangements for the 
meeting of this conference have been delayed 
far beyond any thing customary, even in di- 
plomacy. The act authorizing the conference 
‘became a law in August, 1882. As there was 
No. 48.—1884.. 
‘ 
some doubt whether there would be a sufficiently 
general response to the invitation to insure the 
suecess of the conference, a preliminary cir- 
cular requesting the views of the various govern- 
ments interested, and an expression of their 
willingness to enter the conference, was issued 
from the State department toward the end of 
1882. ‘The responses were in some cases favor- 
able, and in others negative or undecided. A 
desire was felt by the Europeans to have a pre- 
liminary discussion of the subject at the In- 
ternational geodetic conference at Rome in 
October, 1883. The feeling at this conference 
having shown that there would be little dif- 
ficulty in the universal adoption of the Green- 
wich meridian, the final step of calling the 
conference was taken. Why so late a date 
was chosen we are not informed. 
In our issue of Dec. 14 we published an 
article under the title of ‘ The signal-service 
and standard time,’ criticising the action of 
the chief signal-officer in not adopting the new 
standards of time at signal-service stations. 
We have since learned that our criticism was 
not well founded, as the information upon which 
it was based gave an incomplete idea of the 
position of the service in this matter. It is 
true that the observers of the service are still 
governed by the local times of their respective 
stations ; but this is only a temporary arrange- 
ment, and will be changed as soon as possible. 
The reason of the delay is this: the inter- 
national observation, which is taken at many 
stations of observation throughout the whole 
world, is made at seven A.M., Washington time. 
It is proposed to make this observation eight 
minutes earlier, or at seven a.m. of the time of 
the 75th meridian, which is exactly Greenwich 
noon; but, before this change can be made, 
the co-operating weather-services and numer- 
