The San Francisco call., 1896-08-02
THE MOON WILL
CHST HER SH4DOW ON THE
EHRTH'S LUMINHRY.
TOTAL ECLIPSE OF JHE SUN ON JHE 9TH OF
AUGUST TO BE OBSERVED AT YEZ0
BY LICK ASTRONOMERS

area until reduced to slender crescent
white and brilliant, but yielding light
that is neither that of noon nor sunset
Then a luminous halo seems to glimmer
into existence around the dark moon,
and raoiates into wonderful beauty when
the SUMS entirely obscured. This coronal
phenomenon has been variously depicted
and described, but the following descrip-
ton by Professor G. A. Young accords
with general Impressions:
The portion of the corona nearest the
sun is almost dazzlingly bright, with
greenish pearIy tinge which contrasts
finely with the scarlet blaze of the promi-
nences. 1t is made up OF streaks and
filaments which on the whole radiate out
ward from the suns disk, though they are
in many places strangely curved and inter
twined. Usually these flaments are
longest in the sunspot zones, thus giving
the corona more or less quadrangu!ar
figure. At the very poles OF the sun, how
ever, there are often tufts of sharply de-
fined threads. For the most part the
streamers have length not much exceed
ing the suns radius, but some of them at
almost every eclipse go far beyond this
limit. In the clear air of Colorado, during
the eclipse of 1878, two of them could be
traced for five or six degrees-a distance of
at least 8, 600 600 miles from the sun.
most striking feature OF the corona
usually consists of certain dark riffs,
which reach straight out from the moons
limb to the EXTREMIST limit of the corona.
The corona varies much in brightness at
different eclipses, and, of course, the de-
tails are never twice the same. Its total
light under ordinary circumstances is at
least two or three times as great as that of
the full moon. The eclipse of this week
would in the classification OF ancient as
tronomers be called repetition (saros) of
the eclipse of 1878, because it occurs under
the same general conditions and in nearly
the same part OF the heavens after an in
te-val OF eighteen years ter and third
days. The fraction OF a day causes 1t to
be visible in a more westerly region.
Though not repetition, the two are con.
secutive eclipses OF the same series, which
extend over many centuries.
This relationship, however, affects
chiefly the duration of the eclipse, and,
beyond the visib ility of the coronal rays,
Some of the same fixed stars will come
forth to bear witness to the absence of SUM-
light, and as the sun is in the constella-
ton of Leo at present, Regulus will min
gle its white light with that of the corona.
An interesting feature of the coming scene
will be the brilliant light of the three
planets, Jupiter, Venus and Mercury, on
the east side, within few degrees of the
sun. The results on that part of the earth
within the shadow will be scarcely less
impressive. First comes the strange dark
ness, that unearthly shadow that may
never revisit the same landscape, speeding
with such velocity from the west; the sud-
den twilight that is neither dawn nor
dusk; the unwonted violet tints in the
upper atmosphere; the yellow CLEANS
from the distant illuminated stratum near
the horizon, and then the weird vanishing
of all the marvels just as we commence to
realize them.
What is the corona? is question that
has been asked for centuries.
1t is one of the unsettled problems of
solar physics, and for that reason the as
tronomers have gone forth to try and
bring back a satisfactory answer.
The neighborhood Of Varanger Fiord,
to which a well-equipped expedition has
been sent by the Royal Astronomical So
ciety of London, is a wild, mountainous
land, an Arctic wilderness, where reindeer
moss is the only vegetation excepting a
scant herbage in the valleys occupied by
the Norwegian fishermen. This has been
selected as a desirable station by many
European parties, though the eclipse
takes place in the early morning hours
before the sun is far above the horizon
and the duration is less than two minutes.
Among the icebergs on the bleak coast
of Nova Zembla party of Russian scien-
lists have sought footing; but the rug
ged Northmen will cheerfully Withstand
the chill OF any surroundings except an
enveloping fog, which is too likely to be
their only sky view. Another important
Russian station is near the river Amur in
Siberia.
The shadow, passing in southwest di-
rection, fingers here nearly two and half
minutes. For about the same length of
time it envelops the main portion of
Yezo, the northern island of the Japan ese