Science: Eclipse Day

Read a want ad in last week’s newspapers :

See Sun’s Eclipse Safely—Eclipse partial over all United States on afternoon, Aug. 31; total in New England; get eclipse data and mounted dark film for observing eclipse by sending a dime and a self-addressed stamped envelope to photographic department, Yerkes Observatory, Williamsbury, Wis.

Not only an opportunity for Yerkes Observatory to earn a few score unexpected dollars, the eclipse is a godsend to New England. The New England Council, regional business builder, began to advertise the eclipse in magazines and newspapers last February. The Council got out a special eclipse folder. The New England Hotel Association distributed 100,000 copies of a special brochure on the phenomenon. North Conway and Provincetown, Mass.. Wolfeboro, Littleton and Whitefield. N. H. and Fryeburg, Me.—all communities in the path of the totality shadow—have had men & mail calling attention to their excellent locations.

The Boston & Maine Railroad will provide excursions from Boston to North Conway and Fryeburg. The New York, New Haven & Hartford has scheduled excursions from New York and way stations to Fabyan, N. H., and from Boston to Provincetown. The New England Steamship Co. advertised a personally escorted total eclipse Cape Cod tour from Manhattan for $25. Hotels outside the 100-mi, belt of totality organized motorbus services to take guests into the zone.

Farmers were renting hayfields and hilltops as emplacements for the cameras and telescopes of scientific parties. Mount Washington R. R. Co. reminded prospective customers of its Eclipse Day special, that the top of Mount Washington is 30 acres broad and covered with boulders comfortable to sit upon while the Moon passes in front of the Sun.

The enterprise is paying. Hotels in Maine. New Hampshire and Vermont last week reported to the New England Council ”better than seasonal bookings for the eclipse period.” The New England Hotel Association estimated that the “eclipse will bring many millions of dollars into New England.”

So much popular interest frightened as well as delighted astronomers. McGill University begged the Montreal City and the Quebec Provincial Governments to declare Aug. 31 an official holiday from at least the middle of the afternoon. This was to reduce traffic-jams and to help prevent the turning on of street, motor and house lights during the few seconds Montreal will be in the path of the complete eclipse.

Astronomers will be working as intently as gunners during battle. They want no busybodies near them. Observed Dr. Slocum: “The eclipse will not be seen any better from one of the professional stations than from a point some distance away. The astronomers will be very busy for some time before the eclipse, making final adjustments. During the eclipse they will give it their undivided attention. Even after it is over they will be busy developing photographs and taking down their apparatus. Consequently most of the parties will have very little time to entertain visitors.”

The eclipse is complete along a 100-mi, path, partial over the entire U. S. The path of totality moves at nearly 34 mi. per min. from northwest to southeast— from the Arctic Ocean, past the North Magnetic Pole (near where Professor Arthur Holly Compton hopes to be), across Hudson Bay, James Bay, Province of Quebec, New Hampshire, northern Vermont and southern Maine, the northeastern tip of Massachusetts, Cape Cod. The eclipse ends in the middle of the Atlantic.

The eclipse will be total for at most 100 seconds, close to 3:30 p. m. Eastern Standard Time. The U. S. Naval Observatory will broadcast special radio signals from Arlington and Annapolis. WGY, Schenectady and WCSH, Portland, Me. will rebroadcast. Canadian National Railways Station CNRO, Ottawa will also broadcast. The day will probably be poor for radio reception because some sunspots are due to blow open Aug. 28 and 29. Sunspots always disturb radio communications.

A few observers hope to “shoot” the eclipse from airplanes, among them Dr. Clyde Fisher, president of the Amateur Astronomers Association, near Fryeburg, Me.: Dr. Irving Langmuir of General Electric at Concord, N. H. John Wells of Southbridge, Mass, will fly over the White Mountains in an autogiro.