The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-01-22
TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN
MUCH INTEREST REGARDING IT
MANIFESTED BY ASTRONOMERS.


1t occurs To-day. but, Unfortunately for
Americans, 1t 10 Not Visible on This Side
of the Earth-Believed by Chinese to be
Portentious of Disaster, as the 22nd lie
Their New Year.
At the next new moon. January %.
there is to be total eclipse of the sun.
to which astronomers are looking for
ward with intense interest. Unfortu-
nately for us Americans, however, we
are on the wrong side Of the earth to
see 1t, for the track Of the moons shad-
ow will traverse only the eastern CONT
nents and oceans. In the early morn
ing it passes over Gondokoro, on the
Upper Nile: then it crosses the indian
ern coast OF Hindustan, about one hun
dred and fifty miles south Of Bombay.
From there 1t travels northeast over
the great peninsula, crossing the Hima-
| layas near Mount Everest; thence it
moves on through Thibet and western
China, and finally leaves the earth at
sunset at point about three hundred
and fifty miles north of Pekin.
| AS the I'D is the Chinese New Years
| day. and as an eclipse on that day is
believed by the people to be specially
| portentious of disaster, the whole ma
| ton Is reported to be In a state border
| ing on CONSERVATION at its approach.
For astronomers, however. it is a
golden opportunity. During the two
minutes or so while the sun is hidden
| behind the moon at any station the OBJ
servers. If the sky is clear, will be per-
| mitted to see and study many interest
| ing phenomena which are visible only
during an eclipse, particularly such as
relate to the solar atmosphere and to
the mysterious corona which sur
rounds the sun and is the most strik-
ing feature of the spectacle.
| The stations to be occupied, so far as
we know, are all in India. Here the
track of the shadow is crossed by va
| rious railway lines which give conven-
| lent access to many we'll placed sta
tons. The season Of the year is favor
/ able also, warranting the expectation
of good weather. Altogether the pros
pect is very encouraging, and unless
/ some new outbreak Of the plague inter-
4 feres with the plans that have been
| laid out the observers have reason to
| hope for better fortune than that which
overlook so many of them during the
| eclipse of 1896.
| Readers, however, doubtless remen1-
/ Der that in 1896 one English party, in
Nova Zembla, formed a happy excep-
| tion and what more than anything
ELISE has stimulated the interest Of
English astronomers in the coming
event is the wonderful photograph of
| the so-called "1ash-spectrum, which
was obtained by Mr.. Shackleton on
that occasion. The photograph was
made with a camera having a train Of
large prisms before its lens, the in
Simultaneous exposure being made at
the moment when the disk of the sun
| had just been hidden by the moon. At
| that moment the whole depth of the So
/ lar atmosphere is in sight for an in
slant, without any photospheric back
ground, and the negative shows a long
array of hundreds of narrow curved
arcs of many-colored light, which cor
| respond to the bright lines in the spec-
ira of the different vapors and gases
which form the lower strata of the So
4 lar atmosphere, besides numerous
| larger and wider arcs due to the gases
/ of the chromosphere. BY most astron-
omers Mr. Shackleton's negative is con-
| sidered to be a complete confirmation
/ of the old observation made by the
writer at the eclipse of 1870 from which
i CT nf q sravnrcinr 1aVpy.f'
| was inferred as the origin of the dark
/ Fraunhofer lines Of the ordinary solar
spectrum. But Sir Norman Lockyer,
whose peculiar dissertation theory
has led him to deny the existence of
any such layer, still dissents from this
4 Interpretation of the photograph. and a
most earnest attempt will be made
during the coming eclipse to repeat the
observation with instruments more
powerful than Shackleton's and capa-
BILE of deciding the question authorita-
lively one way or the other. The joint
committee of the Royal society and of
the Royal Astronomical society has
sent out several parties, headed by
some of the most eminent of English
astronomers. The Astronomer Royal
from Greenwich (Mr. Christie). Mr.
Copeland, (the Astronomer Royal for
Scotland), Professor Turner of Oxford
and Sir Norman Lockyer himself, all OF
/ them seteran eclipse observers, head
these parties. They take with them a
| numerous body of assistants Though
We are sorry to note that for some rea-
son Mr.. Shackleton's name does not ap-
pear upon the list), and a most formid-
able array of apparatus.
The British Astronomical association
a separate organization, mostly com.
posed Of amateurs, also sends out ar
expedition, which includes many dis.
tinguished observers The astrono.
mers of both expeditions will divide
| into several squads. which will distrib-
ute themselves to seven or eight differ
ent stations, scattered along the whole
length of the eclipse track, In order tc
take advantage of the varying condi.
tons of the weather, and avoid the dis
aster which otherwise might DE caused
by local clouds if the observers were
| all concentrated in one place. Tive
parties have also gone from our owr
Pacific coast: one, headed by PROBES
sor Campbell, from the Lick Observa
tory, and the other from San Francis
co, In charge of Mr.. Burchhalter. We
have not heard of any parties from