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MILES ROCK 



carried on similar work for the Wheeler Survey in our western 

 territories. From 1879 ^^ 1883 he was an assistant astronomer 

 at the U. S. Naval Observatory in Washington, and was a 

 member of the expedition that observed the transit of Venus 

 from Santiago in 1882. 



At the request of the Guatemalan government, Mr. Rock in 

 1883 took charge of their commission for the determination of 

 the boundary line, then in dispute, between that country and 

 Mexico. For fifteen years, with occasional respites, as when 

 he represented Guatemala in the congress that met in Washing- 

 ton in 1884, and agreed upon the use of the Greenwich merid- 

 ian, Mr. Rock devoted himself with successful and exotic 

 energy to surmounting the natural and political obstacles that 

 obstructed the straight path of his duty. His journals of those 

 years are an absorbing narrative of sustained hardship and 

 romantic adventure in the midst of a tropical wilderness of the 

 rarest beauty. 



After completing the survey of the boundary and, by his tact 

 and ability, securing to Guatemala rich territory that she had 

 been in danger of losing, Mr. Rock still spent much of his time 

 in the country he had served so well. He was in Guatemala 

 City, preparing to return to the United States, when he was 

 attacked by a brief illness that ended fatally on the 29th of 

 January, 1901. In recognition of his distinguished services he 

 was buried with public honors by the government of Guatemala, 

 and a monument raised to his memory. 



It is not given to a much younger man, who knew Mr. Rock 

 only in his later years, to adequately conve}' the rare personal 

 charm that was the delight of his intimates and made him an 

 inspiration to all who knew and loved him. There was in him 

 a certain boyish ardor that age could not chill nor disappoint- 

 ments quench. He was generous in the highest sense of that 

 word, and gave of his best to those who needed his help. His 

 scrupulous adherence to the high standards that he set for his 

 own conduct never diminished the oricjinal warmth of his heart 

 or contracted the flow of his sympathy. He looked naturally 

 upon life with courageous optimism, seeing many things worthy 

 of the doing and finding his truest intellectual pleasure in 

 achievement. F. L. Ransome. 



