Mr. RUTHERFURD, Delegate of the United States, said that the Delegate from France, Mr. LEFAIVRE, in his remarks, insisted that we should first establish for what purpose the Delegates were here assembled; that he wished to refer to the circulars sent out by the Government of the United States, under which this Conference was called together.  He said that he could assert, without fear of contradiction, that in those communications the President stated that it was believed to be a foregone conclusion that a prime meridian was desirable; that that was the basis on which the President acted in giving his invitation; that how he came to that conclusion he does not state—­whether or not the proceedings at Rome had anything to do with it, but he thought that they had a great influence on the mind of the President; that, doubtless, his action was not determined solely by that, and, therefore, that the Secretary of State first made a tentative application to see whether a proposition for another Conference was acceptable, and that he found all countries here represented answering the circular in the affirmative; that they agreed with him that a conference for this purpose was desirable.

He continued by saying that the Secretary of State then sent a second invitation to the different nations to send Delegates, who were to assemble here on the first of October, 1884, for the purpose of establishing a prime meridian and a universal time.  He added that it seemed to him a great loss of time to go over the question whether a prime meridian was or was not desirable; that the Delegates were sent here for the purpose of agreeing upon a prime meridian.  He then asked why this Conference should lose time in discussing that question.

The resolution offered by the Delegate of the United States, Commander SAMPSON, was then unanimously adopted as follows: 

“Resolved, 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.”

Mr. RUTHERFURD, Delegate of the United States, then renewed his original resolution, as follows: 

“Resolved, That the Conference proposes to the Governments represented the adoption as a standard meridian that of Greenwich, passing through the centre of the transit instrument at the Observatory of Greenwich.”

Mr. JANSSEN, Delegate of France, stated that he wished to reiterate the objections that he had already offered to the first resolution, and spoke as follows: 

GENTLEMEN:  Mr. Lefaivre, my honorable colleague, and I are of the opinion that the mission of this Congress is chiefly to examine questions of principle.

I consider that we shall do a very important thing if we proclaim the principle of the adoption of a meridian which shall be the same for all nations.