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 deg., or to divide the whole circumference of the earth by meridians at distances of 10 minutes of time or 21/2 deg..

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 deg., 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 passing through the Observatory of Greenwich extended round the globe, this grand circle will cut the equator, at 180 deg. 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 deg. from the meridian of Greenwich, the western half touches very nearly New Orleans, and the eastern half passes a few minutes from Calcutta.  If, now, the hour is fixed according to these four meridians, we have four cardinal