day shall begin.

Mr. RUIZ DEL ARBOL, Delegate of Spain. I understand that the
consequences, perhaps, would not be troublesome at first; but who can
look into the future and say, if we take the meridian of Greenwich as
the standard of time, what difficulties we may be driven into? Every
country will be obliged to count both ways. They will have to use
civil time and universal time. Perhaps all countries may get
accustomed to this radical change sooner or later, but we cannot
foresee the difficulty now. I have here a treatise (a book) on
"Analytic Chronology," showing the rules by which to bring into accord
different dates of different calendars and eras, and I do not know how
they would be affected by this universal time; but it is unnecessary
for me to speak of that, as I think you are acquainted with the
subject.

Mr. JUAN PASTORIN, Delegate of Spain. The Congress has already come to
very important decisions on the subject of the reckoning of longitude,
and it will also certainly approve to-day those which have just been
submitted on the subject of the universal day.

I say certainly, because the result of the former votes being already
known, it cannot be doubted on which side the majority will be, and
because, from a scientific point of view, having chosen Greenwich as
the prime meridian for the calculation of longitude, and having
decided to reckon longitude in two directions from zero hours to
twenty-four hours, with the sign plus towards the east and minus
towards the west, it will be advantageous to make the civil day of
Greenwich coincide with the universal day, if we would have an easy
formula for passing from local to cosmic time.

So many of the resolutions submitted to the Congress by Mr. RUTHERFURD
having been approved one after another, the plan that our colleague
has carefully studied will be accepted in its entirety; but it will be
impossible for the Conference to know in all their details other plans
which, perhaps, would not be less worthy of attention.

Is the resolution adopted by a majority of the Congress the best?
Should we reach the end of the reform in complete harmony with the
hopes of all the governments represented here? On the contrary
hypothesis, it seems to me, that the sessions of this Congress will
only be another step towards that reform, but not the reform itself.

If the majority of the Congress, in accordance with the logical
consequence of its work, adopts as the cosmic time