t the following
sums be, and the same are hereby, appropriated for the objects
hereinafter expressed for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth,
eighteen hundred and eighty-five, namely:

Under the State Department:

For expenses of the International Conference for fixing a common zero
of longitude and standard of time-reckoning, including cost of
printing and translations, to be expended under the direction of the
Secretary of State, five thousand dollars; and the President is hereby
authorized to appoint two delegates to represent the United States at
said International Conference, in addition to the number authorized by
the act approved August third, eighteen hundred and eighty-two, and
who shall serve without compensation.

Approved July 7, 1884.

ANNEX III.

Circular.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE
WASHINGTON, _October 23, 1882_.

SIR: On the 3d of August last the President approved an act of
Congress, in the following words:

"_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives
of the United States of America in Congress assembled_, That
the President of the United States be authorized and
requested to extend to the governments of all nations in
diplomatic relations with our own an invitation to appoint
delegates to meet delegates from the United States in the
city of Washington, at such time as he may see fit to
designate, for the purpose of fixing upon a meridian proper
to be employed as a common zero of longitude and standard of
time-reckoning throughout the globe, and that the President
be authorized to appoint delegates, not exceeding three in
number, to represent the United States in such international
conference."

It may be well to state that, in the absence of a common and accepted
standard for the computation of time for other than astronomical
purposes, embarrassments are experienced in the ordinary affairs of
modern commerce; that this embarrassment is especially felt since the
extension of telegraphic and railway communications has joined States
and continents possessing independent and widely separated meridional
standards of time; that the subject of a common meridian has been for
several years past discussed in this country and in Europe by
commercial and scientific bodies, and the need of a general agreement
upon a single standard re