National Eclipse

THOUSANDS VIEW THE SOLAR ECLIPSE; CORONA AND PHENOMENA OBSERVED.

HOUSE TOPS CROWDED.

President McKinley and Party Seen [sic] Eclipse off Lambert's Point.

Did Not Leave the U.S.S. Dolphin—Something About the Observations Taken—New Phenomenon Discovered—The Shadow Bands Looked For.

On schedule time to a second, the edge of Luna peeped over the sun's disc yesterday morning. At its appearance thousands of intent sun-gazers, with craned necks and straining eyes, uttered an exclamation of delight, yet partly awe-inspired.

The magnificent sun, grandly rising on his daily course to the meridian,—the sun, whose grandeur and sublimity have not yet been adequately described for want of language to express it, suffered himself to be slowly hidden from view, eclipsed, by a worn-out, desert planet one-seventy-millionth it's [sic] size. It was the sight of a life-time, and the many thousands of people who witnessed it in this section experienced a sensation akin to awe, but rapturous at the same time. The world was brought into nearer comprehension of the plains of the universe by the great astronomical event which came and went in so brief a space. The scientific value of the observations taken along its pathway is not yet known, but when computed interesting results are expected.

ON TIME TO A DOT.

Precisely at 7:40.59 o'clock, the moon, whirling through space with the approximate speed of a cannon ball, protruded its rim over the brilliant surface of the sun. Swiftly in reality, but slowly to man's eye, it encroached upon the sun's path until the phase of totality was reached.

The exact time of the eclipse at Norfolk was as follows:

Beginning of eclipse, 7:40.59; beginning of totality, 8:52.33; ending of totality, 8:53.59; ending of eclipse, 10:15.05.

At Virginia Beach—Beginning at 7:41.12; beginning of totality, 8:52.57; ending of totality, 8:54.33, ending of eclipse, 10:15.34.

THE PRESIDENT'S PARTY.

President McKinley and his party viewed the eclipse from the U.S.S. Dolphin, anchored just off Lambert's Point. The Dolphin arrived in Hampton Roads Sunday afternoon.

The members of the President's party had a real good view from where they were stationed, and they felt more than doubly repaid for their trip. The President felt all the enthusiasm of the average layman over the wonderful event. There were on board the Dolphin a number of glasses and a first-class telescope for the use of the party.

The eclipse had no sooner ended than the Dolphin weighed anchor, and started on the return voyage to Washington.

AMONG THE OBSERVERS.

The crowd of observers on the roof of the Citizens' Bank building included, besides the Hartford Scientific people, Chief Willis L. Moore, of the United States Weather Bureau; Mr. Herbert L. Rice, of the Naval Observatory; Dr. F.A. Hesler, of the U.S. Naval Hospital at Boston; several visiting newspaper men, and a number of others. There were several large glasses and one telescope on the roof, and Mr. F.E. Harvey, of the Hartford party, had a 41-inch lens focus camera with which he took two excellent exposures of the corona when the sun was in total eclipse. Twenty-five or thirty ladies were in the party.

Dr. Hesler was in the United States Government expedition to the West Coast of Africa to take observations of the total eclipse in 1869. A thin cloud rendered the observations useless for scientific purposes. Dr. Hesler was interviewed by a Virginian-Pilot reporter on the eclipse of yesterday. He thought it was the grandest sight of his life-time. He took especial notice of the "prominences," the flames about the edge of the eclipsed sun, which are supposed to be caused by exploding hydrogen gas in the chromosphere, a thin shell around the sun.

"BAILEY'S [sic] BEADS" SEEN.

He also saw "Bailey's [sic] Beads," as did several other observers. These are caused by the light from the sun shining through the lunar valleys just before the disc of the sun is covered completely. Dr. Hesler thought the plain visibleness of Mercury one of the most interesting features of the eclipse.

Besides Mercury at least one other star was plainly visible. That was Venus, and several observers say they say [sic] three, four or five stars with their naked eye. Stars likely to have been seen besides Venus and Mercury were Orion, Canis Minor, Gemimi [sic], Taurus and Canis Major.

WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY TEST.

Professor Reginald A. Fessenden, who is perfecting the wireless telegraph system for the Weather Bureau, with several assistants, stretched a wire in the City Park and received a slight manifestation of the electrical current through his Marconi instrument just as the sun peeped from behind the moon.

SHAPE OF THE CORONA.

Professor Hansky's prophecy as to the shape of the corona, as it would appear in yesterday's eclipse, was a remarkably correct forecast. Sometime ago Professor Hansky, who is a noted scientist, drew a sketch of what he predicted the corona would look like. The shape of the corona of different eclipses as seen and sketched is different in every instance. In some eclipses of the past the corona was seen to shoot much further from the sun than it did yesterday, and in other eclipses its volume has been hardly so large. The eclipse of 1867 showed up a corona more closely resembling the corona seen yesterday than any other that has been sketched in the nineteenth century.

VULCAN NOT SEEN.

Whatever the result of scientific observations made at other points in the belt of eclipse, the lost planet, Vulcan, was not found by any of the visiting astronomers in Norfolk. Astronomers generally do not proclaim the existence of Vulcan as a fact, but many of them believe there is a lost planet near the sun. Lescarbault in 1859 discovered, he claimed, this planet. It was named Vulcan. Special endeavor was made by many observers yesterday to find the hidden planet.

NEW PHENOMENON.

A phenomenon never before witnessed among the phenomena of an eclipse of the sun, so far as is known, was claimed to have been seen by several visiting observers. When the sun was nearing total observation [sic] the darkness was very pronounced in the west. A great black sheet seemed to reach out over the horizon in this direction. Against this darkness, the observers say they saw a rainbow circle for three or four minutes before Luna hid the sun.

WATCHED FOR SHADOW BANDS.

Chief Willis L. Moore, of the Weather Bureau, said that his bureau was only making meteorological observations. He had special observers in North Carolina to observe the "shadow bands" when they made their appearance about the time of totality of the eclipse. The exact causes of these shadow bands are not known, and the observations taken yesterday will probably prove of great use. It is the theory of Professor William H. Pickering, of Harvard, and the most generally accepted theory that the shadow bands are due to atmospheric waves occurring a few thousand feet above the earth's surface or the contact of two currents of air flowing with different velocities. Their direction and speed are dependent on the wind, and have no connection with the moon's motion or shadow. We may produce the phenomena at will any cold night, by opening a window near an electric arc light, when the shadow of the rising hot air currents may be seen cast on a sheet of paper.

The shadow bands can be seen best from high hills, as they can then be detected across the valleys. One way by which they are detected is by [the] spreading of a large sheet upon a smooth surface. They were not seen in this vicinity, probably for several reasons, the main one being the levelness of the country.

TO WRITE ABOUT ECLIPSE.

Among the visiting newspaper men were Mr. Talcott Williams, of the editorial staff of the Philadelphia Press, with Mrs. Williams; Mr. Walter C. Hand, also of the editorial staff of the Philadelphia Press, with Mrs. Hand; Mr. H.W. Watts, scientific writer and musical critic of the Philadelphia Press; Mr. Julian Hawthorne, of the Philadelphia North American; Mr. C.E. Tunnelle, of the Philadelphia Inquirer; Dr. Hale, of the New York Commercial-Advertiser; Mr. Robert Toombs Small, of the Washington Evening Star.

The eclipse story at this end was largely handled by many other leading metropolitan dailies, through their special correspondents here, Messrs. J.E. Maxwell, A. McK. Griggs and Benjamin Myers.

NOTES OF THE ECLIPSE.

Chief Willis L. Moore, of the Weather Bureau, who is a most affable gentleman, was congratulated by many of the observers from afar upon the magnificent weather he provided.

The thanks of the observers and newspaper men are due Mr. James J. Gray, the local weather observer for the nice manner in which things were arranged on the Citizens Bank building roof.

Mr. Ernest Staples acted as official stenographer of the Hartford observers on the bank building. A considerable portion of Mr. Ripley's article was dictated while the sun was in total eclipse, Mr. Staples using a light.

The members of the National Geographical Society of Washington saw the eclipse from their chartered steamer stationed at the navy yard.