The Waterbury Democrat., 1932-08-31

HamQSn1TG that SClcHtlStS anu
 sight-seers concentrated. Pickle New England weather | was the principal cause of anxiety, 1 for a rainy or cloudy afternoon would spoil, the impressive phe- nomenon which, for the east at
 least, will not occur again until
 1863.
 For the several hundred scien- lists stationed at strategic points | this would mean waste of hundreds of thousands of dollars, to say nothing of months of assiduous preparation. For the throngs of
 native and visiting curious It
 would mean grave disappointment. | Only for the hotel owners, the
 merchants, the railroads and oth-
 CTS to whom the eclipse has been
 a partial depression buster" was there peace of mind-for the bulk
 of their profits had already been
 counted.
 The tourist pilgrimage into the belt of totality was at it's height
 early in the day, and the thousands arriving by train and automobile
 swelled the visiting crowds to a to-
 tai estimated in the millions. . From New York city, 32 sleep
 ing cars brought nearly 1000 spec tators to Fabyan, N. H., and from
 Boston and way stations six special trains, totaling 60 coaches, carried added throngs to Maine and New Hampshire points.
 National guardsmen augmented
 state and local police in the diff. cult task of keeping traffic moving
 on the overtaxed highways. New
 England highway officials warned
 motorists not to attempt to view
 the eclipse while driving, lest there be serious accidents on the sud- denly darkened roads.
 Scientists, grouped in some 40
 major and minor expeditions, guarded and tested the costly and fragile instruments with which they hoped to draw from the ob- scured sun new knowledge in the fields of astronomy, chemistry,
 physics, and meteorology. Doubt less they were somewhat irked by the distractions of the typically-
 inquisitve throngs of sightseers. By FRED PERKINS United Press Correspondent) Conway, N. H., Aug 31.-UP)-
 Astronomical sciences siege guns of space were concentrated here-
 abouts today in such array as has
 never been equalled elsewhere in the world.
 Battery upon battery of super telescopes and long range cameras | were cooked and primed to start | shooting, rain or shine, half way
 across the length and breadth of 1 the solar system when New Eng l lands last eclipse until 1863 be- comes total at 4:29 p. m., eastern daylight time.
 As sultry August heat slowly burned away the morning mist
 which regularly shrouds this moun- ! tain countryside, gambling odds
 were still fifty-ffty on clear skies I for the vital. 99-second period this
 afternoon which will spell success
 or failure for the half-hundred ex- petitions camping here in front ] seats for natures biggest show of
 the present century.
 Fair weather was the official prediction this forenoon but the | feeciest of summer clouds. drifting
 inopportunity to the focal spot of
 the camera artillery, had potential possibilities as monkey wrench
 in the machinery.
 Weather forecasts. amateur or professional. were being disregard
 ed, nevertheless. by directors of the
 eclipse observation stations which.
 with the scientific three-ring cir
 GUS of the Franklin Institute as center here at Conway. radiate through adjacent Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont areas. Going for the thousandth and | nearly the last time through their
 semi military practice drills in jug
 gling photographic plates and tele- scopic triggers. perspiring explor-
 CTS of the skies denied themselves more than an occasional, perfume tory look at the heavens into which
 their probing lenses were prepared
 to reach.
 Neither our guesses at coming
 weather nor the Washington pre-
 dictions can buy us the bit of blue
 sky We need" James Stokley, di- rector of the Franklin Institute ex-
 petition told his crews and attend