160 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1920. 



station for this work. In the then straitened condition of the Gov- 

 ernment finances the appropriation was not made. Feeling, how- 

 ever, the urgency of the matter, the writer arranged to lay it before 

 Mr. John A. Eoebling, of Bernardsville, New Jersey, who had 

 already shown a great deal of interest in the work carried on by 

 the Institution in South America. Mr. Eoebling expressed the 

 warmest appreciation of the work and suggested that there would 

 be few found who would take so much interest as he in it, and be 

 willing to support improvements in a foreign country, but that many 

 would be glad to associate themselves with the proposed observing 

 station in Arizona or southern California. However, as attempts 

 had already been made to secure support for that new station, and 

 as the immediate establishment of it was urgent, Mr. Roebling at 

 length proposed to give a certain sum of money on condition that the 

 station in Calama should be removed to a mountain site above the 

 turbidity of the atmosphere caused by the smoke and dust of the 

 mines of Chuquicamata and the town of Calama. Any balance 

 remaining from the gift might then be used for the establishment 

 of a station in Arizona or in the most favored locality, or for any 

 other purposes which might relate to the investigation at hand. He 

 proposed to give $8,000 toward these objects, but later generously 

 increased this amount to $11,000. Mr. Moore was immediately tele- 

 graphed to in regard to the removal of the station from Calama to 

 a mountain site. Aided by his colleagues, but with his extraordinary 

 devotion, enthusiasm, and energy, Mr. Moore was able to select a 

 most favorable site about 10 miles farther south than the one hitherto 

 occupied, to award contracts for the construction of the observing 

 station and observers' quarters, and to remove the outfit, with a 

 loss of less than 10 observing days, from Calama to the new moun- 

 tain station called Montezuma, where observations were resumed on 

 August 5, 1920. 



The whole cost of this transfer of the observing station, under 

 Mr. Moore's economical management, amounted to but little more 

 than $4,000. In his subsequent reports Mr. Moore has dwelt with 

 the utmost enthusiasm on the improvement due to the removal to 

 Montezuma. He considers this to be, in regard to the purity of the 

 atmosphere, the freedom from clouds, the absence of winds, the 

 accessibility to the town, and in other respects probably the most 

 favorable station which could be found in the whole world. 



Measurements are going on daily at Montezuma, sometimes by 

 the new short method but often by the longer fundamental method 

 as well, and it is expected to continue the work there for a period of 

 years. Mr. Moore having been in South America for two and a 

 half years, has now returned to the United States and will continue 





