The President. I beg the pardon of the Delegate of Spain; but, in the United States navy, we reckon the day from midnight.
Mr. Ruiz del Arbol, Delegate of Spain. I am speaking generally. Now, there is some reason for this rule among seamen, for the only way to find out the position of a ship is to observe the meridian altitude of the sun; and everybody requires to know, at sea, what has taken place in the course of every day, from the beginning to the last moment of the day; and I think that whatever the rule may be in the United States navy, navigators generally will count their time as they count it now.
I think that navigators will not change the rule now in force, no matter what we may adopt in this Conference.
Commander Sampson, Delegate of the United States. I think, Mr. President and gentlemen, that the change to the adoption of the universal day, beginning at midnight, would be a very decided advantage to navigators. The quantities as now given in the nautical ephemerides are for noon of the meridian for which they are computed, as Washington, Greenwich, &c. It is very evident that every navigator, in making use of the quantities given in the nautical almanac, must find the corresponding time at Greenwich, wherever he may be on the surface of the earth. Consequently, if we suppose that navigators are pretty equally distributed, one-half on one side of the earth and one-half on the other side, the Greenwich day for one portion would be the local night for the other.
The usual observations made by navigators at sea consist in a meridian observation of the sun for latitude, and a morning and possibly afternoon observation of the sun near the prime vertical for longitude. Consequently all navigators, when in the vicinity of the initial meridian, might have their day's work occurring in two astronomical days. On the other hand, those navigators who were in the neighborhood of the 180th meridian would have all their work of one day occurring in the same astronomical day. The first would have the advantage of interpolating for short intervals only, while the second would be obliged to interpolate for much larger intervals.
Consequently, on the whole, it would make no difference to navigators whether the quantities given in the nautical almanacs were for noon or midnight of the initial meridian. Another consideration, however, would make it very advantageous to have the quantities given for midnight. That consideration is this: if midnight were chosen, then the universal day would be identical with the nautical almanac day, and navigators would have only ship time and universal time to deal with, while, if the quantities were given for noon, they would have astronomical time, in addition to the other two. This consideration I think a very important one.
The President. The question will be on the amendment offered by the Delegate of Sweden, Count Lewenhaupt, which has been read.
The vote was then taken, as follows:
States voting in the affirmative:
| Austria, | Sweden, |
| Italy, | Switzerland, |
| Netherlands, | Turkey. |