By that resolution the longitude indicates the relation between the local time and the universal time in the simplest possible way. What can be easier than the method involved in the resolution of Mr. Rutherfurd? It is this: Local time at any place is equal to universal time plus the longitude of the place, plus being understood always in a mathematical sense. The longitude is to be added to the universal time if it is positive, and subtracted if it is negative. That is very simple, the whole being involved in one general formula. Now, I think it is perfectly impossible for Mr. Fleming to make a more simple formula than that. The formula laid down in the proceedings of the Roman Conference was far less simple, as it involved an odd twelve hours. You got the universal time equal to the local time, minus the longitude, plus twelve hours. This is far from simple. It makes the calculation more complicated, and it seems to me that for other reasons it is objectionable. Mr. RUTHERFURD, Delegate of the United States. Mr. President, I do not propose to take up the time of the Conference in reiterating the very conclusive remarks in favor of this resolution made by the Delegate of Great Britain. I wish, however, to allude, for a moment, to another view of this question. Suppose we do not adopt this resolution. What is the course before the Conference? We shall then be called upon, no doubt, to decide that longitude shall be counted all around the world from zero to 360 degrees. That general proposition is one which would not probably meet with violent opposition, but the next point is one that will divide us very materially, and perhaps disastrously. Which way shall we count? Shall it be towards the east or towards the west? My conversations with the gentlemen here present have lead me to know that there is a very great difference of opinion upon this point, and I believe that if we should not adopt this resolution and should decide to count longitude from zero to 360 degrees, a preference to count it in one direction rather than the other would be established only by a very close vote, nearly annulling the whole moral influence of the Conference, and we should go back to our Governments without much, if any, authority on the point in question. And I doubt whether our resolutions would be accepted by these Governments if we show ourselves to be divided upon a question of so much practical importance. It is simply a question of practice--of convenience. We all bowed to the rule of convenience in selecting the meridian of Greenwich. And why? Because seven-tenths of the civilized nations of the world use this meridian, not that it was intrinsically better than the meridian of Paris, or Washington, or Berlin, or St. Petersburg. Nobody claimed any scientific preference among these meridians. It was simply because seven-tenths of the civilized world were already using the meridian of Greenwich.