The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1918-06-08
Black Line From Northwest
to Southeast Corner of
United States.
NOT VISIBLE
IN PENSACOLA
Line of Totality Will Be Fifty
Miles Wide Across tie
Country.

SAN FRANCISCO, June IA great
astral pencil, whose point is fifty miles
in circumference. is to draw JET black
line across the United States from
Aberdeen, Wash, to Orlando, Fla, to-
morrow afternoon.
While the marking is being made
chickens are expected to go to roost
and birds to nest. Street c~rs may run
with their headlights agiare, and there
will be asudden strain on all lighting
utilities. The great c0smic titan who
will hold the pencil and mark ire
line will get even" with Washington
for stealing an hour of sunlight on
that day, for he will take forty-seyen
minutes of that sunlight back again. =
/ The point of that pencil, black as
ebony, will represent an eclipse of the
sun. The pint will begin With the
moon, and will drop in ap exact cone
to the earth where it will delete a
considerable portion of the Paeiti
ocean and the states OF Washington
Oregon, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Arkan
sas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and
Florida, in about the same manner that
a military censor deletes an objection
able line from a war correspondent de-
spatch. The stock OF the pencil will be
represented by nebulous spaca of in
finity. millions of miles long, between
the sun and the mean.
Many an astrological Christopher Co
lumbus will be out along the line" to
discover a new world or two. The
mythical planet Vulcan, said TO hover
near the sun. may possibly be given
positive identity. The great solar
force that makes Mercury shake with
an astral ague as it spins around its
orbit may be uncovered. \ thousand
theories may be proven or repudiated,
chief of them being the theory of re-
latively, first suggested by Einstein, a
German physicist.
The nubin of this theory is that the
light from stars beyond the sun is bent
by the suns gravity before it reaches
the earth in about the same manner
that a street car rail is bent slight
curve. The eclipse is expected to prove
whether such sun gravity can bend
light or not.
The eclipse is expected also to throw
some light on the composition of the
suns spectrum, which, during the
period of totality. glows with a green
ish hue What makes it green is the
question the scientists are going to try
to answer. Points of similarity and
dissimilarity between the atmosphere
of the sun and the earth are to be Civ
en- close attention also.
The polariZed light OF the sun will
also attract interest. Scientists at the
University of California. near here. and
elsewhere say that the light around the
sun moves in regular waves like Wire
less air waves, instead OF bing a steady,
even substance, as around the earth.
The eclipse may explain this difference.
The coronaI spectrum OF the sun, ac-
cording to Professor Z. p. Lewis, de-
partment of Physics, University #
California. is made up OF unknown ele
ments. Professor Lewis is TO study
this coronal spectrum throughout a
large quartz spectograph as member
Of the Lick Observatory party at Gold
endale, Wash. The spectograph. in the
event of the clear weather, is expected
to reveal many new and startling facts
concerning this corona and accompany
ing spectrum.
The war has had some effect on the
plans for observing the phenomena
many OF the scientists who observe sucn
things now being engaged on prelimi
nary study Of the great German eclipse,
which is due somewhere in France" at
an unnamed date.
Stations have been established, how
ever, by the Lick observatory at GoId-
endale, the United States Naval obser-
vatory at Baker, Ore, the Yerkes and
Mount Wilson observatories at Green
River, Wyo.. the Allegheny, Chambers
lain and Yerkes observatories at Dem
yer. the Drake University observatory
at Matheson, Col, the Sproul observa-
tory at Fade. Col, and the Smithsonian
Astrophysical observatory at a point in
Kansas.
These stations are all on the line to
be drawn by the'great astral pencil and
are situated at all sorts of attitudes to
get all possible effects.
The eclipse viii begin at 12e in the
morning at point south Of Japan and
will end at the Bahama islands. east OF
Florida, at 7:29 in the evening, Green
which mean time. The shadow will en-
ter the United States at 30 in the af-
ternoon. Pacific standard time, or 80