4 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 
Bassour, belonging to the Ecole Roudil. The observing station was 
located in latitude 36° 13’ 20” N., longitude 2° 51’ 30” E., at an eleva- 
tion of 1,160 meters. 
With the exception of one French family, all the neighbors during 
most of the four months’ stay were Arabs. A screen-door added to 
the house by the Americans to hinder the entrance of house-flies, 
proved to have a no less valuable effect in keeping out uninvited 
visitors. Ancient methods of agriculture prevail in this region. 
Wheat is the staple crop. The ploughing is done with wooden 
Fic. 1.—Observing station in Bassour. Photograph by Abbot. 
ploughs, and the grain is threshed by treading out with oxen or mules, 
just as probably was done in the same country thousands of years ago. 
The menage for the party was in the hands of Mrs. Abbot, who 
accompanied her husband, and doubtless owing to this circumstance 
no sickness of any kind occurred while the observers were in the 
field. 
A complete spectrobolometric outfit was erected, including a small 
dark-room shelter for the photographic recording galvanometer. 
This shelter was built by Messrs. Abbot and Brackett out of packing 
boxes. The apparatus was the same that Mr. Abbot had used in 1909, 
and 1910, in his brief expeditions to the summit of Mount Whitney, 
