International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884. / Protocols of the Proceedings

by D.C.) International Meridian Conference (1884 : Washington

Mr. Ruiz del Arbol, Delegate of Spain. My proposition is to abstain from the adoption of any one meridian, and that we leave the matter to some other Congress, organized with the special object of regulating this question.

Commander Sampson, Delegate of the United States. Mr. President, as near as I can follow the Delegate of Spain, he seems to be under the apprehension that by the adoption of the universal day, which has been proposed here, we should either gain or lose time in our chronology; that we should skip 12 hours, more or less. But, of course, that is not the case. Any event which has occurred, or which will occur, at the time of the adoption of the universal day will be expressed just as exactly with reference to time as if the time had been calculated from the beginning of the Christian era. There will not only be no confusion, but it seems to me the adoption of the universal day will tend to avoid confusion hereafter, because confusion must exist where we have so many standards of time. Now, if any event which is taking place, or has taken place at any past time in the history of the world, is referred to the prime meridian, or is expressed in the time of any locality or of several localities, these times will all be different. The adoption of the universal day is to avoid any difficulty of that sort, and any event which has transpired will, when expressed in the time of the universal day—that is, according to the universal method—represent exactly the interval of time which has elapsed since the beginning of the Christian era. Nothing is gained or lost.

General Strachey, Delegate of Great Britain. It seems to me that the Congress having accepted the resolution to which reference was made a little while ago, adopting the universal day, it is incumbent upon us, in the nature of things, to determine when that universal day shall begin. The resolution presented by the Delegate of the United States proposes to define how that universal day shall be reckoned; that is, when it shall begin and how its hours shall be counted.

It was explained by him that the difference between his proposition and the proposition made at Rome consisted in altering the time of the commencement of the so-called universal day from noon at Greenwich to the commencement of the civil day. Certainly what Commander Sampson just said is perfectly true. The adoption of this so-called universal day will not interfere in the smallest degree with any purpose for which time is employed in civil life. The two objects are entirely distinct. It is obvious that the conception of the necessity of having a universal day has arisen from the more clear conception of the fact that time on the globe is essentially local; that the time upon any given line (supposing it to be a meridian) is not the time at the same moment on either side of that line, however small the departure from it may be; and for scientific accuracy it has, therefore, been thought desirable to have some absolute standard to which days and hours can be referred. Up to the present time it has been the practice to say, in an indefinite way, that an event happened, say, on the 1st of January at 6 o'clock in the morning, and such a statement of the time has been considered sufficient; but, in truth, this does not completely describe a definite epoch of time, for if the event occurred at Madrid and was so reported, that report would not designate the same moment as a report of an event which was described to have occurred at precisely the same date and hour at Greenwich, or Rome, or Washington. What is required and desired is that we should have an absolute and definite standard for reckoning events of a certain description, for which complete precision is desirable. I consider, therefore, that the Delegate of Spain leads us astray in the proposition which he has offered, by which he virtually proposes to nullify the resolution already adopted. We have already decided that a universal day was expedient, and it is for the Conference to settle now when that universal day shall begin.

Mr. Ruiz del Arbol, Delegate of Spain. I understand that the consequences, perhaps, would not be troublesome at first; but who can look into the future and say, if we take the meridian of Greenwich as the standard of time, what difficulties we may be driven into? Every country will be obliged to count both ways. They will have to use civil time and universal time. Perhaps all countries may get accustomed to this radical change sooner or later, but we cannot foresee the difficulty now. I have here a treatise (a book) on "Analytic Chronology," showing the rules by which to bring into accord different dates of different calendars and eras, and I do not know how they would be affected by this universal time; but it is unnecessary for me to speak of that, as I think you are acquainted with the subject.

Mr. Juan Pastorin, Delegate of Spain. The Congress has already come to very important decisions on the subject of the reckoning of longitude, and it will also certainly approve to-day those which have just been submitted on the subject of the universal day.

I say certainly, because the result of the former votes being already known, it cannot be doubted on which side the majority will be, and because, from a scientific point of view, having chosen Greenwich as the prime meridian for the calculation of longitude, and having decided to reckon longitude in two directions from zero hours to twenty-four hours, with the sign plus towards the east and minus towards the west, it will be advantageous to make the civil day of Greenwich coincide with the universal day, if we would have an easy formula for passing from local to cosmic time.

So many of the resolutions submitted to the Congress by Mr. Rutherfurd having been approved one after another, the plan that our colleague has carefully studied will be accepted in its entirety; but it will be impossible for the Conference to know in all their details other plans which, perhaps, would not be less worthy of attention.

Is the resolution adopted by a majority of the Congress the best? Should we reach the end of the reform in complete harmony with the hopes of all the governments represented here? On the contrary hypothesis, it seems to me, that the sessions of this Congress will only be another step towards that reform, but not the reform itself.

If the majority of the Congress, in accordance with the logical consequence of its work, adopts as the cosmic time the civil time of Greenwich, that decision will be contrary to the most ancient ideas of the human race. For many centuries the day has been reckoned as starting from the east, and the world will not easily abandon the traditions of its predecessors.