67 
laid out my own work in accordance with such a scheme I 
was just commencing to try to persuade the few Southern Ob- 
servatories to unite, when the opportunity came to place the 
matter before the most representative gathering of Astronomers 
that has ever been held The scheme was warmly supported 
by Sir David Gill, Professor Dyson, Professor Kapteyn, and 
others, and through their efforts was brought in a suitable manner 
before the Congress and carried unanimously. That means that 
gradually all the Observatories throughout the world engaged 
upon standard observations will cease casual work and lay out 
their programmes so that all will be co-ordinated. The main 
outline of the scheme is very simple. A certain definite list of 
stars, well distributed throughout the sky at the rate of 3 or 4 
per square degree, will be sele- ted, and' it will be our um'ted 
effort to obtain highly accurate positions of these at different 
epochs. As a basis a few, also well distributed at the rate of 
1 in every five degrees square, will be selected as fundamental 
stars, and observed constantly with all the niceties known to 
modern science at certain first class Observatories. As a con- 
necting link between the large list and the fundamentals a third 
list of stars, to be known as “ intermediate stars ” will be selected. 
The procedure will be : the positions of the fundamental stars 
will be determined in the sky absolutely, by reference to the 
actual equinox, and by actual comparison with the sun. The 
intermediate stars will be observed relatively to the fundamentals, 
and the main list will depend upon the intermediates. Stated 
thus it seems such an obvious procedure that one wonders it has 
not been adopted years ago, but it has only now been generally 
approved and a sub-committee appointed to arrange the details 
and help to have it carried into effect. 
