Evening star., 1924-08-01
IN TODAY'S SPOTLIGHT
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

On the night OF August II there
will occur q total eclipse OF the
moon This is rot SO rare an event
est among astronomers. Nevertheless,
two learned professors Of Harvard
University, Drs. McAdie and Fisher,
have obtained the cooperation of the
Navy in the most widespread and sys-
tematic observations OF the eclipse
ever undertaken. After the request
from Harvard had been referred to
the astronomers of the Naval OBJ
servatory for an outline of what OBJ
servations, would be practicable and
Of use, the following order was is
the Navy:
ITO Asiatic Fleet, commander naval
forces, Europe; commander mid
| shipmen practice squadron, COM
| mander light cruisers divisions:
| "Direct vessels under your COM
mand, from six hours prior to, during
and continuing for six hours after
observations Of color, quantity and
kind of clouds, temperature Of air,
wet and dry bulbs barometer, force
| and direction of wind, temperature
1
rect to photographic Office"
| These observations will be made
simultaneously by hundreds of naval
officers in all parts of the world, al
though the path Of the visible
! eclipse, while the moon will pass
through the shadow of the earth, runs
| through only eastern Australia, the
| Philippines, Siberia, then southwark
over western Europe and Africa and
the eastern half of South America
| X y
| When all these observations of
facts will have been gathered, it will
be the work of Drs. McAdee and
Fisher to make deductions as to the
i effect upon earth of the darkening of
the moon. Even while the moon is
in the actual shadow of the earth, it
is lighted by sunbeams refracted by
the earth's air, which acts as a lens
in bending the rays. At the outer
| edge Of the earths shadow, or "um-
| bra" the red beams are refracted
| first, and the moon takes from them
dull, reddish cast. Later, as IL ap-
proaches the center of the umbra. the
| violet rays succeed the red, giving
the moon a darker. blush tint, fol-
lowed by red as 1t approaches the
| exit from the umbra.
+ +
| Some astronomers suggest that If
the tangent OF the earth chanced to
be encircled with belt of clouds, the
| refraction of the light would be cut
off and the darkened moon would pass
Immediately into invisibility, instead of
taking on the weird red or blue tinge
but DR.. Humphreys, head of the
Weather Bureau, says that Is not the
! case, since no clouds extend more than
| six miles above the earth, while the
| sea Of atmosphere which causes the
! refraction of the passing sunbeams ex-
| tends at least 800 miles high, as has
been demonstrated by spectroscopic OBJ
servations of the aurora borea lis.
| Hence no clouds will seriously affect
| refraction. Such mass of facts as
| the Navy will record August IA cannot
| fail to interest pure science" and it
may lead to valuable deductions.
| Ss 4 + y
What is the moon? For authorita-
tive answer, l cite Prof. George H.
/ Darwin, son of the famous naturalist
for he first evolved the now accepted
| theory. There was d time. some 50,-
| 100000 or more years ago, when the
earth, cooling from it's original gases,
was mass of molten rock revolving
around its axis in less than three
hours, instead of the present 24-hour
J day. AS the earth cooled and shrunk,
| the revolving speed increased. Prof
! William II. Pickering of Harvard de-
| scribes what happened when the
| earth'S revolutions became too fast:
| Now 1T can be shown that if our
| earth were to revolve on its axis in
/ n
| of once in "a hours, portions of it
would be liable to fly away by centri-
| fugal force. AS the original earth
| cooled and contracted from its pahu