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The Astronomers’ Arrival and Challenges of Getting Settled in Chile

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Astronomy at the Turn of the Twentieth Century in Chile and the United States

Abstract

This chapter presents Americans’ arrival to Chile and their first impressions: the country was supposed to be a quiet, trustworthy one, but a strike jeopardized the entire mission. This event shows an interesting cultural gap; through the eyes of the scientists we can see the 1900s Santiago, while astronomers chose the place to build the observatory, and work began. This chapter expands on the idea of this story as one of mirrors, reflecting habits, lifestyles and mentalities of two different societies. These societies behaved very differently, but oddly had similar landscapes, and even a similar seismic pattern. While the Americans were getting used to the southern country, they were also making impressive progress in astronomical science, mainly to solve the so-called sidereal problem.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    American Association of the Advancement of Science, “The D.O. Mills Astronomical Expedition,” Science 17, New Series, no. 428 (March 1903): 436.

  2. 2.

    William H. Wright, “Introductory Account of the D.O. Mills Expedition,” D.O. Mills Expedition Cerro San Cristóbal , Santiago, Chile from Its Organization in December 1900 to March 1906, ed. W.W. Campbell and W.H. Wright, Vol. IX (Sacramento : W. W. Shannon Superintendent State Printing, 1907), 15.

  3. 3.

    Beverly Hard, “Notes on the Directors of the D.O. Mills Expedition to Chile,” 1972. Expeditions, UA 36. Ser 04. Box 12 Folder 6, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz, 3.

  4. 4.

    Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 3.

  5. 5.

    Bárbara Silva, Identidad y nación. Patria Vieja, Centenario y Bicentenario (Santiago: Lom, 2008), 109ff.

  6. 6.

    James Morris, Las elites, los intelectuales y el consenso (Santiago: Pacifico, 1967), 79.

  7. 7.

    Mario Garcés, Crisis social y motines populares en el 1900 (Santiago: Documentas, 1991), 234.

  8. 8.

    Bárbara Silva and Josefina Cabrera, Chile, 100 días en la historia del siglo XX (Santiago: Planeta, 2015), 58.

  9. 9.

    Wright, “Introductory Account,” 16.

  10. 10.

    Wright, “Introductory Account,” 15–16.

  11. 11.

    Wright, “Introductory Account,” 15–16.

  12. 12.

    Wright, “Introductory Account,” 21.

  13. 13.

    Wright, “Introductory Account,” 16.

  14. 14.

    D.O. Mills Expedition—Arrangements 1901–1903, May 1, 1903, UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 1. Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  15. 15.

    Wright, “Introductory Account,” 16.

  16. 16.

    D.O. Mills Expedition—Arrangements 1901–1903, May 1, 1903, UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 1. Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  17. 17.

    D.O. Mills Expedition—Arrangements 1901–1903, May 1, 1903, UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 1. Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  18. 18.

    Wright, “Introductory Account,” 19.

  19. 19.

    Charlotte Bigg, David Aubin, and Philipp Felsch, “Introduction: The Laboratory of Nature—Science in the Mountains,” Science in Context 22, no. 3 (2009): 311–321.

  20. 20.

    William W. Campbell, “Organization and History of the D.O. Mills Expedition to the Southern Hemisphere ,” D.O. Mills Expedition Cerro San Cristóbal , Santiago, Chile from Its Organization in December 1900 to March 1906, ed. W.W. Campbell and W.H. Wright, Vol. IX (Sacramento : W. W. Shannon Superintendent State Printing, 1907), 8.

  21. 21.

    Ricardo Leiva, “Atacama: a 100 años del informe Curtis,” Revista de Humanidades 3 (2010): 15.

  22. 22.

    Wright, “Introductory Account,” 19.

  23. 23.

    Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 2.

  24. 24.

    Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 2.

  25. 25.

    Wright, “Introductory Account,” 21.

  26. 26.

    Campbell, “Organization and History,” 8.

  27. 27.

    Campbell, “Organization and History,” 11.

  28. 28.

    Leiva, “Atacama: a 100 años,” 15.

  29. 29.

    Silva, Identidad y nación, 79–85.

  30. 30.

    Wright, “Introductory Account,” 16.

  31. 31.

    Twenty-five years later, when the Americans were about to leave Chile, Manuel Foster bought the observatory and donated it to the Catholic University. The University named the observatory after him.

  32. 32.

    Wright, “Introductory Account,” 16.

  33. 33.

    D.O. Mills Expedition—Arrangements 1901–1903, May 1, 1903, UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 1. Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  34. 34.

    Wright, “Introductory Account,” 18.

  35. 35.

    D.O. Mills Expedition—Arrangements 1901–1903, May 1, 1903, UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 1. Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  36. 36.

    Wright, “Introductory Account,” 18.

  37. 37.

    Wright, “Introductory Account,” 18.

  38. 38.

    D.O. Mills Expedition, Correspondence—W.W. Campbell to D.O. Mills. Mount Hamilton, January 21, 1905. UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 3, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  39. 39.

    Wright, “Introductory Account,” 18.

  40. 40.

    Wright, “Introductory Account,” 19.

  41. 41.

    Campbell, “Organization and History,” 9.

  42. 42.

    Campbell, “Organization and History,” 9.

  43. 43.

    Campbell, “Organization and History,” 9.

  44. 44.

    Campbell, “Organization and History,” 9–10.

  45. 45.

    Campbell, “Organization and History,” 10.

  46. 46.

    D.O. Mills Expedition, Correspondence—W.W. Campbell to D.O. Mills. Mount Hamilton, January 21, 1905, UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 3, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  47. 47.

    D.O. Mills Expedition, Correspondence—W.W. Campbell to D.O. Mills. Mount Hamilton, January 21, 1905, UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 3, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz. Emphasis in original.

  48. 48.

    D.O. Mills Expedition—Arrangements 1901–1903, September 1, 1903. UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 1, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  49. 49.

    D.O. Mills Expedition—Arrangements 1901–1903, September 1, 1903. UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 1, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  50. 50.

    Campbell, “Organization and History,” 8.

  51. 51.

    Campbell, “Organization and History,” 8–9.

  52. 52.

    “El observatorio del San Cristóbal,” Revista Zig-Zag, May 13, 1906.

  53. 53.

    David S. Evans, Under Capricorn: A History of Southern Hemisphere Astronomy (Bristol: IOP Publishing, 1988), 192.

  54. 54.

    Andreas Reisenegger, “Estrella del pasado,” Revista Universitaria 116 (2012): 25.

  55. 55.

    William W. Campbell, “Notes on the D.O. Mills Expedition to the Southern Hemisphere ,” Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 23, no. 135 (February 1911): 52.

  56. 56.

    D.O. Mills Expedition, Correspondence—W.W. Campbell to D.O. Mills. Mount Hamilton, March 9, 1906, UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 3, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  57. 57.

    “El observatorio del San Cristóbal.”

  58. 58.

    “El observatorio del San Cristóbal.”

  59. 59.

    D.O. Mills Expedition—Arrangements 1901–1903, September 1, 1903. UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 1, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  60. 60.

    “El observatorio del San Cristóbal.”

  61. 61.

    “El San Cristóbal,” Pacífico Magazine, November 1914.

  62. 62.

    “El San Cristóbal.”

  63. 63.

    “El observatorio del San Cristóbal.”

  64. 64.

    Rodrigo Ferno, Science Still Born: The Rise and Impact of the Pan American Scientific Congresses, 1898–1916 (Lincoln: iUniverse, 2003), 28.

  65. 65.

    “El observatorio del San Cristóbal.”

  66. 66.

    Wright, “Introductory Account,” 21.

  67. 67.

    D.O. Mills Expedition—Arrangements 1901–1903, September 1, 1903. UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 1, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  68. 68.

    Wright, “Introductory Account,” 21.

  69. 69.

    Wright, “Introductory Account,” 22.

  70. 70.

    D.O. Mills Expedition—Arrangements 1901–1903, September 1, 1903. UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 1, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  71. 71.

    D.O. Mills Expedition—Arrangements 1901–1903, September 1, 1903. UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 1, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  72. 72.

    D.O. Mills Expedition—Arrangements 1901–1903, September 1, 1903. UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 1, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  73. 73.

    Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 2.

  74. 74.

    Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 3.

  75. 75.

    William Wright, quoted in Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 3.

  76. 76.

    Heber Curtis, quoted in Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 6–7.

  77. 77.

    Heber Curtis, quoted in Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 7.

  78. 78.

    Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 4.

  79. 79.

    Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 4.

  80. 80.

    Heber Curtis, quoted in Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 4.

  81. 81.

    Heber Curtis, quoted in Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 7.

  82. 82.

    Alfredo Rodríguez and Carlos Gajardo, La catástrofe del 16 de agosto de 1906 en la República de Chile (Santiago: Barcelona, 1906).

  83. 83.

    D.O. Mills Expedition, Correspondence—W.W. Campbell to D.O. Mills. Mount Hamilton, October 27, 1906. UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 3, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  84. 84.

    D.O. Mills Expedition, Correspondence—W.W. Campbell to D.O. Mills (telegram). Mount Hamilton, August 24, 1906. UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 3, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  85. 85.

    Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 4.

  86. 86.

    Terremotos en Chile. Valparaíso, Chillán, Valdivia (Santiago: Museo Histórico Nacional de Chile, 2009), 30.

  87. 87.

    Heber D. Curtis, quoted in Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 4.

  88. 88.

    Heber D. Curtis, quoted in Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 4.

  89. 89.

    Heber D. Curtis, quoted in Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 4.

  90. 90.

    Bárbara Silva and Alfredo Riquelme, Una identidad terremoteada. Comunidad y territorio en el Chile de 1960 (Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Alberto Hurtado, 2018).

  91. 91.

    Heber D. Curtis, quoted in Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 4.

  92. 92.

    “Nearly all Santiago slept out doors that night, in spite of the rain. Santiago was pretty badly scared and slept in coaches or in the street cars [sic] or without protection.” Heber D. Curtis, quoted in Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 5.

  93. 93.

    D.O. Mills Expedition, Correspondence—W.W. Campbell to D.O. Mills. Mount Hamilton, October 27, 1906. UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 3, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  94. 94.

    Heber Curtis, quoted in Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 5.

  95. 95.

    Heber Curtis, quoted in Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 5.

  96. 96.

    Heber Curtis, quoted in Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 5.

  97. 97.

    D.O. Mills Expedition, Correspondence—W.W. Campbell to D.O. Mills. Mount Hamilton, October 27, 1906. UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 3, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  98. 98.

    Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 5.

  99. 99.

    D.O. Mills Expedition, Correspondence—W.W. Campbell to D.O. Mills. Mount Hamilton, October 27, 1906. UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 3, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  100. 100.

    Heber Curtis, quoted in Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 6.

  101. 101.

    D.O. Mills Expedition, Correspondence—W.W. Campbell to D.O. Mills. Mount Hamilton, October 27, 1906. UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 3, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  102. 102.

    Heber Curtis, quoted in Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 6.

  103. 103.

    D.O. Mills Expedition, Correspondence—W.W. Campbell to D.O. Mills. Mount Hamilton, October 27, 1906. UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 3, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  104. 104.

    Heber Curtis, quoted in Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 6.

  105. 105.

    Heber Curtis, quoted in Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 6.

  106. 106.

    El Mercurio de Valparaíso, August 6, 1906.

  107. 107.

    Jose Luis Giordano, La predicción del terremoto de 1906 ¿ciencia o fantasía? Una aproximación a la historia perdida bajo la leyenda del Capitán Middleton (Riga: Académica Española, 2013).

  108. 108.

    Hard, “Notes on the Directors,” 6.

  109. 109.

    Rosa Urrutia and Carlos Lanza, Catástrofes en Chile 1541–1992 (Santiago: La Noria, 1993), 164; Terremotos en Chile, 32.

  110. 110.

    D.O. Mills Expedition, Correspondence—W.W. Campbell to D.O. Mills. Mount Hamilton, August 24, 1906, UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 3, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  111. 111.

    D.O. Mills Expedition, Correspondence—W.W. Campbell to D.O. Mills. Mount Hamilton, October 27, 1906. UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 3, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

  112. 112.

    D.O. Mills Expedition, Correspondence—W.W. Campbell to D.O. Mills. Mount Hamilton, January 31, 1907, UA 36. Ser 04. Box 8 Folder 3, Lick Observatory Records, Special Collections, Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

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  1. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Bárbara K. Silva

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Silva, B.K. (2019). The Astronomers’ Arrival and Challenges of Getting Settled in Chile. In: Astronomy at the Turn of the Twentieth Century in Chile and the United States. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17712-6_3

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