Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the following sums be, and the same are hereby, appropriated for the objects hereinafter expressed for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and eighty-five, namely: 

Under the State Department: 

For expenses of the International Conference for fixing a common zero of longitude and standard of time-reckoning, including cost of printing and translations, to be expended under the direction of the Secretary of State, five thousand dollars; and the President is hereby authorized to appoint two delegates to represent the United States at said International Conference, in addition to the number authorized by the act approved August third, eighteen hundred and eighty-two, and who shall serve without compensation.

Approved July 7, 1884.

ANNEX III.

Circular.]

         &nb
sp;                                     DEPARTMENT OF STATE
                                   WASHINGTON, October 23, 1882.

SIR:  On the 3d of August last the President approved an act of Congress, in the following words: 

“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President of the United States be authorized and requested to extend to the governments of all nations in diplomatic relations with our own an invitation to appoint delegates to meet delegates from the United States in the city of Washington, at such time as he may see fit to designate, for the purpose of fixing upon a meridian proper to be employed as a common zero of longitude and standard of time-reckoning throughout the globe, and that the President be authorized to appoint delegates, not exceeding three in number, to represent the United States in such international conference.”

It may be well to state that, in the absence of a common and accepted standard for the computation of time for other than astronomical purposes, embarrassments are experienced in the ordinary affairs of modern commerce; that this embarrassment is especially felt since the extension of telegraphic and railway communications has joined States and continents possessing independent and widely separated meridional standards of time; that the subject of a common meridian has been for several years past discussed in this country and in Europe by commercial and scientific bodies, and the need of a general agreement upon a single standard recognized; and that, in recent European conferences especially, favor was shown to the suggestion that, as the United States possesses the greatest longitudinal extension of any country traversed by railway and telegraph lines, the initiatory measures for holding an international convention to consider so important a subject should be taken by this Government.