cause it introduced
the idea of time in a measure of length, and also because it was
peculiar to Paris, and because a measure acceptable to the whole world
was desired. It is important not to introduce questions of national
rivalries into a scientific reform intended to be accepted by all, and
history shows us precisely on this question of prime meridians what
active rivalries there are. There was a time when almost every nation
which had a large observatory had a meridian, and that meridian was
considered an object of national pride. There were the meridians of
Paris, of Rome, of Florence, of London, and so on, and no nation was
willing to abandon its meridian for that of another. If you please to
adopt either the meridian of Greenwich, Washington, Paris, Berlin,
Pulkowa, Vienna, or Rome, our reform may be accepted for the moment,
especially if it offers immediate advantages in economy; but it will
contain within it a vice which will prevent its becoming definitive,
and we are not willing to participate in action which will not be
definitive.

Whatever we may do, the common prime meridian will always be a crown
to which there will be a hundred pretenders. Let us place the crown on
the brow of science, and all will bow before it.

Commander SAMPSON, Delegate of the United States, said that he thought
that the Delegate of France, Professor JANSSEN, had explained very
fully the advantages of a neutral meridian, but he thought that he had
not explained how we are to determine the neutral meridian. He added
that he quite agreed with Professor ADAMS and Professor NEWCOMB, that
to establish a prime meridian it is necessary to refer its position to
an astronomical observatory.

He stated further that if a meridian were selected passing through the
Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, it must be referred to some initial point
whose longitude is known, and the consequence of that would be, it
seemed to him, that the prime meridian selected would still be
dependent upon some national observatory, and that to select a
meridian at random without reference to any observatory would lead to
the utmost confusion, and, he had no doubt, would not be entertained
by any one.

Prof. JANSSEN, Delegate of France. When my honorable colleague,
Commander SAMPSON, reads the remarks which I have just made, he will
see that I have very fully shown what characterizes a neutral or
geographical meridian, as contradistinguished from those meridians
which,