been published that the trains are run by the
time of the seventy-fifth or ninetieth, etc., meridians, as the case
may be.

The same standards are used by the Railway Mail Service of the United
States Post-office Department, which had previously used Washington
time exclusively for through schedules.

It will at once be apparent how undesirable any action would be to the
transportation interests of this country, which should so locate the
prime meridian as to require these time-standard meridians to be
designated by other than exact degrees of longitude. That these
standard meridians should continue to be designated as even multiples
of fifteen degrees from Greenwich is regarded as decidedly preferable.
To change to different standards, based upon exact degrees of some
other prime meridian, would require an amount of legislation very
difficult to obtain.

At a convention of the managers of many important railway lines which
control through their connections fully three-fourths of the entire
railway system of this country, held in Philadelphia on October 9,
1884, certain action was taken, of which I have the honor to present a
duly attested copy.

"At a meeting of the _General Railway Time Convention_, held
in _Philadelphia, October 9th, 1884_, the following minute
was unanimously adopted:

"_Whereas_, An International Conference is now in session at
Washington, D. C., for the purpose of fixing upon a prime
meridian and standard of time-reckoning; and

"_Whereas_, The railway companies of the United States and
Canada have adopted a system of time standards based,
respectively, upon the mean local times of the 75th, 90th,
105th, and 120th meridians west from Greenwich, and this
system has proved so satisfactory in its working as to
render any further change inexpedient and unnecessary;
therefore

"_Resolved_, That it is the opinion of this Convention that
the selection of any prime meridian which would change the
denomination of these governing meridians from even degrees
and make them fractional in their character would be
disturbing in no small measure to the transportation lines
of the United States and Canada.

"_Resolved_, That a duly attested copy of these resolution
be presented to the Conference."

P. P. WRIGHT,
_Chairman._