International Conference Held at Washington Part 24

States voting in the affirmative:

Austria-Hungary, Mexico, Brazil, Netherlands, Chili, Paraguay, Colombia, Russia, Costa Rica, San Domingo, France, Spain, Great Britain, Switzerland, Hawaii, Turkey, Italy, United States, j.a.pan, Venezuela.

Liberia,

States voting in the negative: None.

Abstained from voting:

Germany, Sweden.

Guatemala,

Ayes, 21; noes, 0; abstained, 3.

The PRESIDENT. The resolution of the Delegate of France is, therefore, adopted.

General STRACHEY, Delegate of Great Britain. Sir, before concluding the session to-day, I hope that the Delegates will be in a position to listen to the two resolutions which I now desire to propose, and which I think will tend to clear up a good deal of the discussion which we have had. The first of these resolutions is as follows:

"The Conference adopts the opinion that, for the purposes of civil life, it will be convenient to reckon time, according to the local civil time at successive meridians destributed round the earth, at time-intervals of either ten minutes, or some integral multiple of ten minutes, from the prime meridian; but that the application of this principle be left to the various nations or communities concerned by it."

This resolution, as it stands, embraces all the practical suggestions which have been made on the subject up to the present time. The only limitation it proposes to put upon the adoption of what may be called local standard time is that the breaks shall be at definite intervals of ten minutes or more.

The second resolution which I propose is a very simple one. It is this:

"The arrangements for adopting the universal day in international telegraphy should be left for the consideration of the international telegraph congress."

There has been established by an international arrangement a congress which meets every two years to settle questions of international telegraphy, and I think that the precise manner in which universal time may be adapted to telegraphy would very properly be left to that congress.

Mr. DE STRUVE, Delegate of Russia. On behalf of the Delegates of Russia, I beg to make the following remarks:

We have already expressed the opinion that the universal time could be properly used for international postal, railway, and telegraphic communications. But it is to be understood that local or any other standard time, which is intimately connected with daily life, will necessarily be used side by side with the universal time.

It has been proposed, in order to establish an easier connection between local and universal time, to accept twenty-four meridians at equal distances of 1 hour or 15, or to divide the whole circ.u.mference of the earth by meridians at distances of 10 minutes of time or 21/2.

This question not yet having been made the subject of special and thorough investigation by the respective Governments, and not having been discussed at the International Conference at Rome, we believe that it would as yet be difficult to express, in regard to Europe, any positive opinion on the practical convenience of the above mentioned or other possible methods of dividing the globe into equal time-zones.

We would suggest to recommend that the system of counting the hours of the universal day from 0 to 24, which probably will be adopted for the universal day, might also be introduced for counting the local time side by side with the old method of counting the hours of 0 to 12 A.

M. and 0 to 12 p. m.

Count LEWENHAUPT, Delegate of Sweden. I have had the honor to transmit to the members of the Conference a resume of a report on this subject made by Professor Gylden, an eminent Swedish astronomer, whose name, no doubt, is familiar to many of the Delegates. The system proposed by Mr. Gylden is similar to the one now proposed by the Delegate for Great Britain. The only difference is that Mr. Gylden, in explaining the system, recommends the adoption of equidistant meridians, separated by intervals of 21/2, or 10 minutes of time, while the proposition of the Delegate for Great Britain is so worded that this distance may be greater than 10 minutes. This difference is, however, only a question of detail. The basis of Mr. Gylden's system is that time meridians should be separated from the standard initial meridian by either 10 or some integral multiple of 10 minutes. Therefore, I shall, with pleasure, vote for the resolution of the Delegate from Great Britain.

I beg only permission of the Conference to insert Mr. Gylden's report as part of my remarks:

_ReSUMe OF A REPORT read before the Swedish Geographical Society by Hugo Gylden, Professor of Astronomy and member of the Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, concerning the use of Equidistant Meridians for the fixation of the Hour._

If we suppose the meridian pa.s.sing through the Observatory of Greenwich extended round the globe, this grand circle will cut the equator, at 180 from Greenwich, at some place a little east of New Zealand. This meridian falls almost entirely in the Ocean, and cuts, in any case, not more than a few small islands in the Pacific. If we suppose, further, another great circle at 90 from the meridian of Greenwich, the western half touches very nearly New Orleans, and the eastern half pa.s.ses a few minutes from Calcutta. If, now, the hour is fixed according to these four meridians, we have four cardinal times--one European, one American, one Asiatic, and one Oceanic.

It will, however, be necessary to fix much more than one civil time for Europe. Therefore I suppose for Europe a whole system of meridians, which, however, ought not to be closer together than 21/2. The difference of time between these meridians is then only 10 minutes, which, in general, can be considered as an insignificant difference between the civil and the true solar time. The starting point of this system is the meridian of Greenwich. To the west the system ought to extend 30 minutes; to the east 21/2 hours, or to a meridian pa.s.sing near Moscow.

I suppose as time zero the meridian of Greenwich. The next meridian to the east is meridian 1. This meridian will not pa.s.s far from the Observatory of Paris, because the difference between this meridian 1 and the meridian of Paris is only 40 seconds, an insignificant difference in civil life. The meridian 1 can be called the meridian of Paris, or French meridian.

The second meridian (to the east of Greenwich) does not touch Utrecht, but will pa.s.s so close that the time of this city could, without the least inconvenience, be regulated as if the difference of time between Greenwich and Utrecht were exactly 20 minutes. The second meridian would also pa.s.s almost as close to Amsterdam, (22s.,) and would not be far from Ma.r.s.eilles, (1m. 29s.) In the vicinity of the third meridian we have, first, Bern, (16s.;) next, a little further, Turin, (42s.) The fourth meridian is close to Hamburg, Altona, and Gottingen, (respectively 6s. and 14s.) Not far from the same meridian is Christiania, although at a distance of a little over 2 minutes. The fifth meridian pa.s.ses also close to three large cities--Rome, (5s.,) Leipzig, (26s.,) and Copenhagen, (20s.)

The sixth meridian does not touch any city of importance, but it coincides very nearly with the meridian adopted for the normal civil time in Sweden; the difference amounts only to 15 seconds.

The seventh meridian touches the little town of Brieg, in the vicinity of Breslau, and Konigsberg is situated two minutes from the eighth. The ninth meridian pa.s.ses less than one minute to the west of Abo, and is situated at a distance of only a few seconds from Mistra, a town in Greece. The tenth meridian almost touches Helsingfors in Finland. As regards the eleventh meridian, I have not been able to find any locality of importance exactly so situated that it merits a place in this list, but I can, however, mention the cities of Minsk and Ja.s.sy. The twelfth meridian is situated 1m. 14s. to the west of the Academy of Sciences, in St. Petersburg, and the distance from Kiew is about the same. It is not necessary to continue the enumeration of the other meridians to the east by intervals of 10 minutes, but I will mention that Moscow is situated _2h. 30m. 17s._ to the east of Greenwich, and in consequence the system would be convenient with regard to this city.

If we pa.s.s to the west of Greenwich, we will find that the first meridian west touches the little town of Almeria, in the south of Spain, which country extends to equal distances on both sides of this meridian, east and west, and the situation of Portugal is the same with regard to the third meridian west.

Then, in all the towns and localities given above, of which the greater part are of some importance, the local time coincides so closely with times differing from the Greenwich time, by whole multiples of 10 minutes, that there is no reason to fear any real inconvenience if these times were taken to regulate local reckonings. If the different countries in Europe should decide to adopt the system which I have explained, the following system of normal times would, perhaps, be found convenient:

EAST OF GREENWICH.

1st Meridian, France.

2d " Holland and Belgium.

3d " Switzerland.

4th " Norway, (and Western Germany.) 5th " Denmark, Germany, and Italy.

6th " Sweden and Austria.

7th " Eastern Germany.

8th " Hungary.

9th " Poland and Greece.

10th " Finland, Roumania, and Bulgaria, 11th " European Turkey.

12th " Western Russia.

WEST OF GREENWICH.

1st Meridian, Spain.

3d " Portugal.

It is, however, not at all necessary that each country should adopt a single civil time for the whole of its territory. If several normal times should be adopted, it is still possible to use the system, provided only the several times differ from Greenwich time by 10 minutes, 20 minutes, &c.; but it would be necessary that the clocks should indicate the times adopted with great precision, and that the difference did not amount to even a few seconds, because otherwise the advantages of the adoption of the system would be materially reduced.

This circ.u.mstance, that it is possible for each country to adopt the system, and at the same time to maintain a certain independence with regard to the adoption of the most convenient normal times, is of considerable importance with regard to the possibility of introducing a system of this kind. In fact, it is possible to arrive at the application of the system in such a way that the transition would hardly be observed by the great majority of the population. As regards railroads and telegraphs, the advantages would be the same as if the local times were everywhere identical, because it is easy to remember the multiple of 10 minutes which ought to be added to the time of a given country for translation into the time of another country. The difference of time between Sweden and Denmark would, for instance, be 10 minutes--a circ.u.mstance which everybody would soon learn to remember. A traveller leaving Sweden would then know that his watch, if correct, shows exactly 10 minutes more than the clocks of the Danish railroad stations, and if he continued his voyage to Paris, he would know that the clocks of Paris are exactly 50 minutes behind the clocks in Sweden.

I have tried to explain the advantages of this system for the countries in Europe. I am not able to judge if similar systems can be considered necessary in America and Asia. It is possible that North America could be satisfied with one single normal time, which, if America connects this time with the European system, ought to be fixed exactly 6 hours behind Greenwich. While starting from this normal meridian, it is possible to establish a more or less elaborate system of equidistant times a.n.a.logous to the system which has been proposed for Europe. The same can be said of the civil times of Asia, which ought to be connected with a normal time 6 hours in advance of the time of Greenwich.

Africa ought to belong to the European system. The French civil time could be adopted for Algeria and Tunis; the time of Denmark, Germany, and Italy for Tripoli; for Egypt the time of Russia; the Spanish time for Morocco; at the mouth of the Congo where, no doubt, sooner or later, an important centre of civilization will rise, the meridian of Sweden and Austria could be used; the meridian of Hungary could be adopted for the Cape of Good Hope.

It will not be possible to connect South America and Australia with any of the four cardinal times mentioned, but some other combination, into which it is not necessary to enter on this occasion, can easily be found.

The PRESIDENT. If the Chair hears no objection, the pamphlet referred by the Delegate of Sweden will be printed as proposed.

Mr. LEFAIVRE, Delegate of France. Mr. President, I move that the Conference adjourn until Wednesday, at one o'clock p. m.

The motion was put and agreed to, and the Conference thereupon adjourned at 4:30 p. m. until Wednesday, the 22d inst., at one o'clock p. m.

VII.