ral use. This additional
consideration of economy would limit our choice to the meridian of
Greenwich, for it may fairly be stated upon the authority of the
distinguished Delegate from Canada that more than 70 per cent. of all
the shipping of the world uses this meridian for purposes of
navigation.

The charts constructed upon this meridian cover the whole navigable
globe. The cost of the plates from which these charts are printed is
probably 75 per cent. of the cost of all plates in the world for
printing mariners' charts, and is probably not less than ten millions
of dollars. As a matter of economy, then, to the world at large, it
would be better to permit those plates to remain unchanged which are
engraved for the meridian of Greenwich and to make the necessary
changes in all plates engraved for other meridians.

A very natural pride has led the great nations to establish by law
their own prime meridian within their own borders, and into this error
the United States was led about 35 years ago.

Should any of us now hesitate in the adoption of a particular
meridian, or should any nation covet the honor of having the selected
meridian within its own borders, it is to be remembered that when the
prime meridian is once adopted by all it loses its specific name and
nationality, and becomes simply the Prime Meridian.

Mr. RUTHERFURD, Delegate of the United States, stated that he did not
propose to take up much of the time of the Conference; that he had
listened with great pleasure to the exhaustive speech of his
colleague, Commander SAMPSON, but that he wished to say a few words
about the conditions of permanence in the prime meridian to which
allusion had just been made. He said that he would call attention to
the fact that the observatory at Paris stands within the heart of a
large and populous city; that it has already been thought by many of
the principal French astronomers that it should no longer remain
there; that it has been, interfered with by the tremors of the earth
and emanations in the air, which prevent it from fulfilling its
usefulness; that for several years past strenuous efforts have been
made to remove the observatory from Paris to some other place where it
may be free to follow out its course of usefulness, and that the only
thing which keeps it there is the remembrance of the honorable career
of that observatory in times past. He added that he was sure that
there was no one here who failed to reco