Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1925-01-24
MOON IS BATTERED
LIKE FIGHT VICTIM
Contacts With Comets
Shown to Have PLAYED
Havoc With Appearance.
RE ROBERT T.. SMALL,

prrnas and corona coronas. to say
nothing Of solar contacts, umbra
nNnumbras and the various other
highly colored phenomena of a first
PCS total 'lipse playing 1t pre-
nier on Broadway. astonished New
VI X today disc 1ve~ed the moon.
1t is a ragged dislike thing In
thu sky, as badly battered in appear-
an as Lul Angel Firpo generally
Is about tho tenth round of any one
of his hume Gus battles. Comets
have plunged into the poor old moon
Hnd made enormous dents in it's once
far surfa .. Some day. they say, a
comet Will knock the Garth for loop.
The moon ; horrible example of
what may Il ppen after that.
Has Disappearing Feature.
New York was disappointed to find
the moon has no atmosphere. That is
why it has been so long absent from
Broadway. Here one imply must
have IN atmosphere. Some seasons
il may be Russian or Cze"hoslovakian.
4 cain it may be French or Batik, but
alv-aNe e must he atmoSrhe~e
Nav York's head has been be-
vi dercd these many days. 1t has
been trying to absorb I'll the knowl
edge the scientists have gained from
their studies of eclipses during the
learning being a dangerous thing
New York tried to look In all direc-
tions at once. The metropolitan au-
dience was mass of amateur astron-
omers, each one trying to count those
Bailey beads, every one apart; each
one trying to chase the furtive
shadows across the SHOWS, and all
bracing themselves involuntarily
against the Gshadow WALL which
was rushing in from the West at the
rate of GO miles a second.
Moon Wins Applause.
The New York audience always is
a generous one. Today's big gather
ing was no exception. 1t cheered the
moon as it finally obliterated the sun.
1t cheered that last one OF the Bailey
beads which chung to the lowest point
of the sun as II for an interminable
time and seemingly bent on spelling
all the calculations of totality. That
bead hung like a diamond drop in the
murky sky, while the filmy corona
spread its fanlIke glory into what
they say was millions of miles Of
space.
But the audience was not through
with its cheering. 1t cheered the sun,
the good old sun, badly needed dur
ing this coolest snap of the Winter.
as 1t gave the moon a thrust like that
OF subway guard trying to jam the
last passenger aboard an already
overCrowded train.
altogether It was what New York
calls "a perfect performance" OF
course, 1T can't be said offhand that
any one has proved or disproved the
Einstein theory that rays of light
from distant stars passing close to
the sun on their way to the earth
hN~ IL
ton OF the sun, because the stars
photographed are distorted by pass
ing through so much atmosphere. Yet
the doubt as to the solution of this
problem did not seem to affect the
man in the street a bit. He was very
glad, of course, that the sun had an
elevation of II degrees. Sixteen and
half might have entirely spoiled the
day for him, but seventeen appeared
just about right
Bothered by Green Line.
What bothered the New York OBJ.
servers a very great deal was that
green line in the corona They say
it is a unknown element on the sun.
New Workers. know the green line
well. They follow 1t every day in
the subway stations. They could not
reach the corona, however.
The eerie atmosphere that sur
rounded the eclipse, the crowded
housetops of the city. and finally the
cheer which greeted the spectacle at
its height, all were reminiscent of a
Zeppelin night in London. when one
of the big marauding gas bags was
shot down in flames. A spontaneous
cheer went up that night in heart
felt Thanksgiving. Today the cheer
was that of an audience vast and de-
lighted.
One of the best vantage points from
which the eclipse was viewed was at
the Washington Bridge, spanning the
Harlem River at One hundred-an
eighty first street. At tho Manhattan
end of the bridge is n park and there,
flying in the early morning breeze,
was a beautiful new American nag.
When the stars came out and at one
stride came the dark, many eyes turn
ed from the sun to the huttering SYM
boil, and hats reverently were lifted.
peared again, heralding the end Of the
show, the flag was still there" spar
king in it's newfound glory.
Darkness of Pale san.4t.
II there was one disappointment to
the eclipse 1t was in the depth Of the
darkness ae-totality. New York evil
IDENTIFY expected a Stygian blackness
despite the warnings that the light
would be unlike any other In the
world. The street lights in the upper
city were aft ull glow, but the dark
ness was only that of pale sunset.
In every other respect the per-
Torrance was up to highest expec-
tations and certainly no event in the
history of the world ever had SO
much press-agenting as this. What
all the mathematical analyses event.
ually will show no one can at the
moment tell. Some one may have
accurately measured the steaming
flames which flowed about the black
bulk of the moon as 1t hid the sun
from view. But it really makes no
difference II these flames were 2Oo,-
900 or 100000 miles in height. 1t is
all beyond the average human con-
ception. The layman is glad only
that the astronomers know enough
to predict the eclipseS and that their
descriptions are not overdone.
Weather Ia Question.
According to the naked eye, the
weather on the sun was more or less
normal. 1t may be shown, however,
that an awful storm was brewing and
that agitated atoms were doing a.
wild dervish dance. Spectroscoplc
studies were made by the thousands.
The eclipse upset New York COM
pletely. 1t reversed traffic. The rush
hour was all up town. But New
York, after all, Is quick In readjust-
ments. Secure in the knowledge that
there would not be another total solar
spectacle over Manhattan for another
500 years, New York riding down
town in the subway, went contentedly
! back to it's crossword puzzles.