Mr. SANDFORD FLEMING, Delegate of Great Britain.  Mr. President, I have a few words bearing on the subject before the Conference which I wish to express before any action is taken.

The PRESIDENT.  There will be no subject before the Congress if the resolutions of General STRACHEY are withdrawn, and the Chair understands that the object of General STRACHEY in withdrawing these resolutions was to avoid a discussion upon a subject that could hardly lead to any satisfactory conclusion.

If, however, Mr. FLEMING desires to address the Conference, he will be at liberty to do so.

Mr. FLEMING, Delegate of Great Britain.  I do not wish to intrude any new matter upon the Conference.  What I had to say had a bearing upon the subject, but, if the resolutions are withdrawn and the Conference desires to end the matter, I shall not insist upon speaking.

No objection being made, the resolutions offered by General STRACHEY at the last session of the Conference were then withdrawn.

Count LEWENHAUPT, Delegate for Sweden, then proposed that the resolutions passed by the Conference should be formally recorded in a Final Act, stating the votes on each resolution that was adopted.

The Conference took a recess, in order to allow the Delegates to examine the draft of the Final Act.

After the recess the Final Act was unanimously adopted, as follows: 

FINAL ACT.

The President of the United States of America, in pursuance of a special provision of Congress, having extended to the Governments of all nations in diplomatic relations with his own, an invitation to send Delegates to meet Delegates from the United States in the city of Washington on the first of October, 1884, for the purpose of discussing, and, if possible, fixing upon a meridian proper to be employed as a common zero of longitude and standard of time-reckoning throughout the whole world, this International Meridian Conference assembled at the time and place designated; and, after careful and patient discussion, has passed the following resolutions: 

I.

“That it is the opinion of this Congress that it is desirable to adopt a single prime meridian for all nations, in place of the multiplicity of initial meridians which now exist.”

This resolution was unanimously adopted.

II.

“That the Conference proposes to the Governments here represented the adoption of the meridian passing through the centre of the transit instrument at the Observatory of Greenwich as the initial meridian for longitude.”

The above resolution was adopted by the following vote: 

In the affirmative: 

Austria-Hungary,        Mexico,
Chili,                  Netherlands,
Colombia,               Paraguay,
Costa Rica,             Russia,
Germany,                Salvador,
Great Britain,          Spain,
Guatemala,              Sweden,
Hawaii,                 Switzerland,
Italy,                  Turkey,
Japan,                  United States,
Liberia,                Venezuela.

In the negative: