(Witness: Moore.) know precisely what we are doing there. Members of the committee have been up to that plant, and the committee is fully cognizant of the work, and the law is ample to go ahead with the work. The CHAIRMAN. I will suggest just right on that point. Of course I do not know what the understanding of the committee isProfessor MOORE. Let me read the authority. The CHAIRMAN. Just a moment. I was going to suggest this: You began this building about five years ago? Professor MOORE. These buildings; not this building." The CHAIRMAN. This plant? Professor MOORE. This plant. The CHAIRMAN. Now, do I understand that the authority that you had five years ago is identical with the authority that you now propose to read? Professor MOORE. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Then it went no further, but did go as far? The CHAIRMAN. If that is the case, what you read now will cover the whole ground, so that we will know exactly on what basis and under what circumstances the expenditure was incurred? Professor MOORE. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. What are you reading from? Professor MOORE. I am reading from page 3 of the act making appropriations for the Department of Agriculture for the year ending June 30, 1906. This reads: Buildings. Weather Bureau: For the purchase of sites and the erection of not more than five buildings for use as Weather Bureau observatories. That language is specific. We can erect five Weather Bureau observatories at Mount Weather, or wherever else we want to put them up. The CHAIRMAN. You mean that a proper and fair construction of that language would enable you to locate five observatories on one spot? Professor MOORE. Precisely; if it was deemed advisable to do so. The CHAIRMAN. I disagree with you. I do not think that is a proper construction, if you will allow me to say so. Professor MOORE. But nothing has been done like that. The CHAIRMAN. But you think you have this right. Now, as I understand, that is all the authority that you had Professor MOORE. No; I have not got through reading it. The CHAIRMAN. What other authority have you got to build a plant like this? Professor MOORE (reading): And for all necessary labor, materials and expenses, plans, and specifications. to be prepared and approved by the Secretary of Agriculture, and work done under the supervision of the Chief of the Weather Bureau, including the purchase of instruments, furniture, supplies, flagstaff, and storm-warning towers to properly equip these stations. That is all. The CHAIRMAN. Do you not think, then, that the word "stations there would indicate separate stations? Professor MOORE. I do not know. That is open to (Witness: Moore.) The CHAIRMAN. As indicating that there is to be an observatory in each station? Professor MoORE. That is open to The CHAIRMAN. Now, is it thinkable that you could put five observatories in one station? Professor MOORE. We have not done so in any place here. The CHAIRMAN. Your idea is that under the language that is used this would confer the authority upon the Chief of the Bu reau Professor MOORE. The idea of the Appropriations Committee itself, when discussing it, was that this authority was ample for us to go ahead each year and add one or two buildings to Mount Weather, as we might see fit. That is the point. The CHAIRMAN. I understand the point you are getting at is that the language you have just given is all the authority you have under the law for creating this plant; but that in conversations with, or at hearings before, the Agricultural Committee, they agreed with you that you could go ahead and originate this plant, which will ultimately cost $250,000, under this provision of the law. Do I get it correct? So that whatever you have done in connection with the creation of this $200,000 plant-and we will talk about that plant a little later on-is done by virtue of and under the legal authority of the language that you have cited, and also by virtue of conferences with members of the Committee on Agriculture, who have agreed with you that under that authority you had power to originate and create that plant. Do not I state it correctly? Professor MOORE. I think you state that about right, Mr. Chairman, except that there is a further authority that began last year. The CHAIRMAN. That does not originate? Professor MOORE. No, sir. The CHAIRMAN. No: unless they have something ratifying whatever you have done. Have they? Professor MOORE. Nothing further than that. The CHAIRMAN. Let us go on, then. So that, as a matter of fact, if there is any criticism about this expenditure and the creation of this plant at an expense of $250,000 Profesor MoORE. It has not cost $250,000. The CHAIRMAN. No; but you are going to have it cost that. Professor MOORE. I may not; because I may stop any day. But whatever we have got is good and useful for this purpose so far. The CHAIRMAN. I want to get your notion about it. Let me see if I get it right. Of course, I want you to state it from your own point of view. I got the impression that your idea was when you got this plant completed as it was originally intended, so as to perform all its functions in the most useful and effective and valuable manner, that you would need a plant, or would have a plant, that would cost $250,000, but that you have such a plant that you could now stop without impairing the efficiency of what you now have without going on to the completion of the full project. That is your idea, is it not? Professor MOORE. If you will allow me, I will answer that question fully; I should rather predicate my answer (Witness: Moore.) The CHAIRMAN. I would be glad if you would answer it in your own way. Professor MOORE. In my own way, if you please. The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Professor MOORE. When this institution was begun we did not know what it would cost. We built slowly each year that which we knew that we could use at that time and make good use of. I have said to you that if I were going ahead to construct this plant now it would probably cost $200,000 or $250,000, away along in the future some time; but I wish to make plain that with each step in the progress of this work we have only built a little each year, just that which we knew we were going to use, and when it was done we could stop right there, and we would have a useful institution for the purpose for which it was designed. As that idea has grown upon us, and as I have come before the committee year after year to explain how far we had gone, and I thought we might go a step further, the committee have thought it wise, and have agreed that under this authority to construct five Weather Bureau buildings each year, we might go ahead gradually adding to the institution. Now, there will come a time when the committee will consider it wise to stop further construction at Mount Weather. I do not know when that time will be, and I presume they do not know. It depends upon whether at the end of each year there appears to be necessity for further construction, as the development of the science of meteorology seems to indicate; so that when I say that it will cost $200,000 ultimately, or possibly $250,000, for expenditures on the institution I am simply making a forecast on the future. I do not know that it will be so. And it was not known when we began how much money was to be spent there. We did not begin with the definite plan of spending $250,000 on that institution. No; we began with the proposition that we would purchase a tract of ground up on this mountain. We needed it. In the first place, we wanted an observation from that first range of the Blue Ridge to use in our forecasting here; and as we could buy a tract of 90 acres for a mere pittance, something Jike $2,000 or $2,500, we thought that we had better buy it. Then we could have a place on the mountains that we could enlarge, and it seemed advisable to do so. So the simple weather station was constructed from which we might get weather observations. The CHAIRMAN. What was that, an observatory? Professor MOORE. It was one building in which the observer might live, and in which a regular observation station might be carried on. The CHAIRMAN. Would you call that an observatory typical of these others you have been describing? Professor MOORE. Yes; that was the first building. Then the location seemed to be desirable for research work. We had reached that point in the development of meteorological science where we were making the best forecasts that it was possible for us to make with our knowledge of the science. Now, the proposition came up to the committee in this way: This Weather Service, which spends $1,300,000 that was the amount they were expending then, about--is making the best forecasts it can make with the development of the science that is back of the forecasts. Are you content that we should lie on our oars and carry on this work without experimentation or without (Witness: Moore.) endeavoring to add to the science by experimentation? If so, we are content. We are here to carry out the wishes of the committee and of Congress. But if you want us to go ahead and delve into these secrets of nature, which we are more competent than anybody else in the world to inquire into because of our long training, you will have to authorize us to gradually add to some one of our stations, and this one at Mount Weather is preferable, because it has the best location. The CHAIRMAN. To do what-what for? I would like to know why you could not do that work in Washington: Do you have to go up on this hill to do anything but make observations? Professor MOORE. You have to go where you can get the proper meteorological conditions. You have to go far from the city and far from trolley lines and things of that description. The CHAIRMAN. To make additional observations? In the first place, of course, these questions may seem more or less unintelligent, because I do not know anything about the proposition. Professor MOORE. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. Let me get it in my mind. In the first place, you have an observatory. Is that for the purpose of taking observations? Now, were there any other observations necessary to take in order to perfect the science in the manner in which you have described; and if so, what were they? Professor MOORE. I was leading up to that. The CHAIRMAN. I beg your pardon. Professor MOORE. It was necessary, if we were to improve the work that we are doing, that we learn something more about the science of it, about the physics of the air. The CHAIRMAN. My inquiry was, Was it necessary to take any additional observations other than those provided for and made possible by the observatory that was erected? Professor MoORE. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. And if so, what kind of observations was it necessary to make? What facilities were not provided by the observatory already erected? That is what I wanted to get in my mind. Professor MOORE. In the first place, it is necessary to take magnetic observations, and in order to install a magnetic observatory it is necessary to get away from trolley lines. The CHAIRMAN. Why might not these magnetic observations be taken in connection with the observatory that is already constructed? What is to hinder? What is the physical or scientific difficulty in taking your magnetic observations, and in connection with the observatory? Professor MOORE. They are being taken in connection with, but not in, the first observatory that was constructed. In a magnetic observatory the walls must be at least 6 feet thick and be insulated so that there will not be a change of over one-tenth of 1 degree centigrade between summer and winter where the delicate instruments are installed. They are specially designed buildings; people can not live in those buildings; they are built for a constant temperature. The CHAIRMAN. They are not necessarily buildings to live in. Why could they not have been made adjuncts to that observatory? Professor MOORE. They could not have been. (Witness: Moore.) The CHAIRMAN. Why not? Professor MOORE. It is utterly impossible, simply because you have got to have those buildings constructed without any metal except copper. We certainly would not construct buildings that we had no use for. The CHAIRMAN. I wanted to know what the use was. Mr. FLOOD. I suppose those are very expensive buildings? Professor MOORE. There are two small buildings, one absolute and one variation building. Mr. FLOOD. I suppose they are more expensive than the ordinary observation building? Professor MOORE. No; they are smaller. The CHAIRMAN. How large are they? Professor MOORE. The interior area of each building is about the size of this room. The CHAIRMAN. Of the two of them? Professor MOORE. No; each. The CHAIRMAN. Each building is the size of this room? Professor MOORE. Each would aggregate about the area of the interior of this room; there is an upper room and a basement room. The CHAIRMAN. And they cost how much? Professor MOORE. Anywhere from $15,000 to $20,000. The instruments in them are very delicate apparatus. Many of them were made in Europe and they are extremely sensitive. They have to be very carefully adjusted and handled. The CHAIRMAN. They are the most expensive kind of instruments? Professor MOORE. They are the best of their kind we could find anywhere in the world. The CHAIRMAN. And they are the most expensive constructed, I suppose? Professor MOORE. They are, sir. Those instruments recorded the pulsations of the ether at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius. The CHAIRMAN. You have got that here? Professor MOORE. Yes; the eruption of Vesuvius. Those waves originated there and came around the world. The CHAIRMAN. How were you able to determine that that was a fact? Professor MOORE. Coincidently; they were simultaneous. These electric waves move with the velocity of light. The CHAIRMAN. There was no other explanation of the manifestation, you say? Professor MOORE. NO. The CHAIRMAN. And therefore you attributed it to Vesuvius? Professor MOORE. Yes. Our seismograph here in Washington recorded the San Francisco earthquake, but that caused earth vibrations. It took eight minutes for the waves to come across the continent, while these ether waves from Vesuvius came here almost instantaneously, traveling at the rate of 186,000 miles a second. In the installation of these instruments it is necessary to get away from the city. Another kind of observation is an observation of temperature and of pressure at high levels. For that it was necessary to construct one |