ERFURD, with the amendment
offered by the Delegate of Sweden, Count LEWENHAUPT.

The resolution is as follows:

"_Resolved_, That this universal day is to be a mean solar
day, is to begin for all the world at the moment of mean
midnight of the initial meridian coinciding with the
beginning of the civil day and date of that meridian, and is
to be counted from zero up to twenty-four hours."

The amendment offered is as follows:

"The Conference recommends as initial point for the
universal hour and the cosmic day the mean mid-day of
Greenwich, coinciding with the moment of midnight or the
beginning of the civil day at the meridian 12 hours or 180 deg.
from Greenwich.

"The universal hours are to be counted from 0 up to 24
hours."

Mr. VALERA, the Delegate of Spain, said that he thought that the
amendment of the Delegate of Sweden should be first discussed.

Mr. JANSSEN, the Delegate of France. At the last session I informed
the Congress that I had received a telegram from Sir William Thomson
upon the question of the meridian. Since then, that illustrious
foreign member of the Institute of France has written me a very kind
letter upon the subject, in which he expresses his complete
appreciation of the disinterested attitude taken by France in this
Congress. I thank Sir William Thomson for his sentiments towards
France, and I am persuaded that, with such excellent feelings, we
should arrive at an understanding, upon scientific bases, in which the
moral and material interests of all would be equitably adjusted, as we
have always understood them.

But the question is not open now, and this Congress would, doubtless,
not be disposed to reopen it. Sir William Thomson will understand,
therefore, that in the present condition of affairs we have only to
maintain the attitude which we have taken and the votes which we have
given.

The PRESIDENT. The Chair will simply say to the Conference that he
very informally alluded to the letter that he had received from Sir
William Thomson, and the Chair would also say in answer to the Spanish
Minister that the rule in this Conference, a simple one, is to discuss
the last amendment offered and dispose of it, instead, as suggested by
the Delegate of Spain, of taking up the one most important in its
character. It would be somewhat difficult for the Chair to decide on
all occasions which amendment is the most important. I t