Charles Dillon Perrine and the Transformation of the Argentine National Observatory

For details on the early period see the author's articles on Gould in The Americas, xxxviii (1971), 152–75; and on Thome in Journal of inter-American studies and world affairs, xiii (1971), 215–229.

A complete inventory of the observatory's equipment with many fine photographs is available in Perrine , “The National Observatory of the Argentine Republic”, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (hereinafter PASP), xxii (1910), 205–11.

By this time all the appropriations for the observatory were made in paper money or moneda nacional (m/n). Originally the observatory had been funded in gold pesos. Argentina went off convertible currency in 1885 and restored gold to the monetary system in 1899 by a law which established the ratio of paper to gold at 44 centavos gold equal to one paper peso. The Argentine gold peso was equal to ·965 U.S. gold dollars. After 1929 Argentina went off the gold standard again with subsequent inflation in terms of paper pesos, making it increasingly difficult for the observatory to meet obligations from appropriations which remained the same.

Manuscript of press release by Campbell W. W. in Lick Observatory Archives, University of California, Santa Cruz (hereinafter L.O.A).

Letter, Perrine to Campbell, 9 July 1909 (L.O.A). Perrine's passage to Argentina was paid for by the government. The annual appropriation as well as special grants can be found easily in the yearly budget (Presupuesto general) of the Argentine Government at the end of the Division on the Ministry of Justice and Public Instruction under the section usually entitled “Establecimientos diversos”.

Letters, Perrine to Wheeler Benjamin , 29 March 1909; Perrine to Campbell, 6 and 29 April, 9 June 1909; Tucker Richard H. to Perrine , 31 May 1909; Perrine to Tucker , 6 June 1909; Perrine to Campbell , 5 July 1909 (L.O.A).

Frances Thome was one of the American schoolteachers who had arrived in Argentina in 1883. She wrote a pathetic letter to an old friend of her father's, Richard H. Tucker, explaining her hopes and fears, 22 January 1909. Perrine's side is given in his letter to Campbell of 5 July (L.O.A).

Perrine's annual report to the government, printed in República Argentina, Memoria presentada al honrable congreso nacional correspondiente al año de 1911 por el Ministro de Justicia e Instrucción Pública (hereinafter cited as Memoria followed by year), iii, 545–58; Memoria, 1912, ii, 682–92.

Ibid., 1911.

Ibid., 1911.

Resultados del Observatorio Nacional, xxv (Córdoba, 1934). The volumes of the Resultados series were the major official publications of the observatory. These constitute thirty-eight folio sized volumes (catalogues, atlases and photographs) issued between 1879 and 1951, printed by various presses, not always in chronological order, in Buenos Aires and Córdoba, as well as in Europe and the United States ( Perrine , “Resumé of Observations of Halley's Comet at Córdoba”, PASP, xxii (1910), 211–13).

Letters, Perrine to Campbell , 8 November and 10 December 1910; 5 April 1911; 6 July and 26 August 1912 (L.O.A).

Detailed account and photographs in Perrine, “Two New Domes for the Córdoba Observatory …”, PASP, xxvi (1914), 179–81.

Presupuesto general, 1912 (Law no. 8883); Perrine to Campbell , 23 April 1912 (L.O.A).

Details and photograph in Perrine , “Site for the Large Reflector …”, PASP, xxvii (1916), 253–9; The Observatory, xl (1917), 137–8.

Letter, Perrine to Campbell , 13 May 1913 (L.O.A).

Ditto, 26 August 1912. The bibliography on Ritchey is extensive; for a detailed concise readily-available biography see Dictionary of scientific biography (New York, 1970–), xi, 470.

Letter, Perrine to Campbell , 26 August 1912. The first of many reports to the government that the work was not going as well as had been hoped appears in Memoria, 1914, ii, 368–79.

Memoria, 1916, iii, 651–8; Dessy Jorge Landi , “Charles Dillon Perrine y el desarollo de la astrofísica en la República Argentina”, Boletín de la academia nacional de ciencias, xxxxviii (1970), 225.

Memoria, 1914, loc. cit.; Memoria, 1916, loc. cit.; Perrine to Campbell , 26 December 1917 (L.O.A).

Dessy Landi , op. cit. (ref. 19), 227. Dr Landi Dessy is the current chief of the Córdoba Observatory.

Letter, Perrine to Campbell , 3 February 1913 (L.O.A.); Decree 23 October 1913; Memoria, 1914, loc. cit.

Perrine, “Site for the Large Reflector …”, loc. cit. (ref. 15); Perrine to Campbell , 9 April 1918 (L.O.A).

Letter, Perrine to Campbell , 18 July 1919 (L.O.A).

Ditto, 30 January 1923 (L.O.A.); Memoria, 1921–2, ii, 376–82.

Memoria, 1924, ii, 453–4; Perrine to Campbell , 2 June 1923; República Argentina, Memoria presentada al honrable congreso nacional correspondiente al año de 1925 por el Ministro de Obras Públicas (hereinafter Memoria-Obras Públicas), 214; ibid., 1927, 297; ibid., 1929–30, ii, 59, 110. Cost of these repairs ran to about 250,000 pesos m/n.

Memoria, 1924, ii, 453–4; ibid., 1925, ii, 381–4; Publications of the American Astronomical Society (hereinafter PAAS), v (1927), 417.

Letters, Perrine to Aitken R. G. , 23 July 1923; 7 November 1924 (L.O.A).

“Córdoba Observatory Report for the Year Ending December 31, 1927”, PAAS, vi (1931), 165; Report for 1928, ibid., Letter, Perrine to Hale , 10 April 1927, George Ellery Hale Papers, microfilm edition. All Perrine's correspondence with Hale is in roll 29.

Córdoba Observatory Report for 1929, PAAS, vi (1931), 384–5; reports for 1930 and 1931 in PAAS, vii (1933), 54–55 and 130–1 respectively; Letter, Perrine to Aitken, 27 March 1930 (L.O.A). Cost to the Ministry of Public Works for construction of dome exceeded 160,000 pesos m/n (Memoria-Obras Públicas, 1929–30, ii, 207).

As early as 6 February 1927 he wrote his friend Aitken that he thought the period of the observatory's usefulness had come to an end, and that he felt both he and Zimmer might be forced to go at any moment (L.O.A).

Letter, Perrine to Hale, 8 December 1932 (Hale MSS). A letter was sent from Mr Wilson to J. C. Hostetter of the Corning Works relaying Perrine's request, but there are no records of any correspondence between Perrine and Corning Glass ( Barber Raymond R. (Technical Information Center, Corning Glass Works) to the author, 11 November 1975).

Fisher Clyde , “James Walter Fecker Builder of Telescopes March 4, 1891–November 11, 1945”, Popular astronomy, liv (1946), 17–19.

Memoria, 1941, 247–55.

Not until the mid-1970s would the instrument be dwarfed in the Southern Hemisphere by those of the Carnegie Institution (101-inch), European Southern Observatory (142-inch), Inter-American Observatory (158-inch)–-all in Chile, and the 153-inch Anglo-Australian telescope at Epping, Australia.

Memoria, 1917, iv, 329–34.

First Astronomer Zimmer Meade L. , who had replaced Albrecht, did not retire until 1941. His departure for the United States in that year ended the tradition established by Gould.

Perrine's detailed account of these affairs can be found in a typewritten manuscript in the Hale MSS entitled “Summary of the Principal Attacks Made upon Myself and the Córdoba Observatory”. According to W. S. Adams, Roscoe Sanford of Mt Wilson knew Gil well and confirmed that he was an incompetent charlatan (Letters, Adams to Hale, 8 January 1934; Perrine to Hale , 10 April 1927; 29 September and 8 December 1932 (Hale MSS); and Perrine to Aitken , 6 February 1927 and 27 March 1930 (L.O.A.)).

“Informe sobre sobre el Observatorio Nacional de Córdoba–-29 de abril de 1927”, printed as Appendix B to Dessy Landi , op. cit. (ref. 19).

Los Principios (clippings from issue of late 1932–-no specified date–-enclosed in Perrine to Hale, 3 November 1932); El País, 18 October 1932.

He addressed himself to this question at length in an address, “Fundación del Observatorio Nacional Argentina y sus objetos”, in September 1929 to the Argentine Scientific Society in Buenos Aires (Anales de la sociedad científica argentina, cxi (1931), 281–94). The observatory was eventually attached to the University of Córdoba in 1955.

La Prensa, 23 October 1930; La Nación, 8 and 11 November 1930. Perrine was convinced that the editors of La Prensa had been misled and realized their error, refusing to print subsequent attacks, whereupon his enemies turned to La Nación whose editor, Mitre Jorge , was related by marriage to Martin Gil.

Letter, Perrine to Hale , 29 September 1932 (Hale MSS).

República Argentina, Congreso nacional, Diario de sesiones de la cámara de diputados, 1932, iv, 200–3.

Letter, Perrine to Hale , 10 November 1933 (Hale MSS).

Typewritten copy in Spanish of Decree, dated 1 June 1933, enclosed in Perrine to Hale, 5 July 1933 (Hale MSS). This decree does not appear in any of the official collections of such documents which the author has been able to locate. The Consejo de Observatorios was provided for in the very next general budget. In the extensive bibliography in both Spanish and English, dealing with the general political situation in Argentina at this time by far the clearest and best treatment is Potash Robert A. , The army and politics in Argentina 1928–1945 (Stanford, 1969).

Prensa La , 27 April 1934; Nación La , 28 April and 1 May 1934.

“La astronomía moderna”, Anales de la sociedad científica argentina, cxii (1931), 343–56.

This was the view of W. S. Adams expressed privately in a letter to Hale , 8 January 1934 (Hale MSS).

For a report on the partially successful expedition to Venezuela, see Perrine , “The Total Solar Eclipse of February 3, 1916”, PASP, xxvii [misprinted xxix] (1916), 247–52; Monthly notices of the R.A.S., lxxvii (1916), 65–68.

Perrine , “The Total Solar Eclipse of May 20, 1947, in Córdoba”, PASP, lix (1947), 188–9.

Letter J. L. Sérsic to the author, 14 December 1971.