2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I48 



Congressional appropriations $1,148,000 



Gifts by John A. Roebling 617,000 



Grants by National Geographic Society 65,000 



From Smithsonian funds 10,000 



Other gifts 10,000 



Total $1,850,000 



The finances were managed by the Smithsonian Disbursing Office. 



STAFF 



The number of persons employed for all purposes varied from 2 

 to 14. 



BUILDINGS 



With headquarters in Washington, instruments were designed and 

 constructed there, and early observations were made there. However, 

 most of the observing later was done on several high mountains in 

 distant arid lands. In all, 16 structures were built in these far-off 

 lonely places to house observers and instruments. A valuable sug- 

 gestion by E. B. Moore led us to construct underground laboratories 

 in sloping ground for the spectrobolometric apparatus. Thus we 

 obtained constant temperature. We fed the sun-rays into these 

 tunnels horizontally with coelostats. 



ACTIVITIES OF THE OBSERVATORY, 1904-1953 



INSTRUMENTS 



Five kinds of pyrheliometers for measuring the intensity of sun- 

 rays were designed. These included the silver-disk, the water-flow, the 

 water-stir, the improved Angstrom, and the automatic-balloon pyrheli- 

 ometers. For measuring sky-radiation the pyranometer was designed. 

 Other instruments designed included the vacuum bolometer, special 

 extrapolator for spectral atmospheric transmission measures, appa- 

 ratus for observing stars by day for guiding airplanes, a compact 

 spectrobolometer for expeditions, eclipse apparatus, high intensity 

 lamps for Fowle's infrared investigation, numerous supports for 

 mirrors, and many other observing devices. All of these instruments 

 were constructed by Andrew Kramer, instrument maker for the 

 Observatory, 1891-1950, and after 1950 by Darnel Talbert. 



