IN ECLIPSE TODAY
Kansas in Path of Event Rarely Seen in America.
Next Total Eclipse Here Will Be in 2017.
Ninety per cent of the normal sunlight in Kansas will be shut off this afternoon between [the] hours of 5:22 and 6:28 o'clock, when the moon will pass between the sun and the earth. In some parts of the country the eclipse will be total.
The total eclipse of the sun takes place when the lunar shadow actually reaches the earth. While the moon passes eastward, approaching gradually the point where it is exactly between us and the sun, steadily the darkness deepens as more and more sunlight is withdrawn. Then quite suddenly the darkness of late twilight comes on, when the moon reaches just the point where the moon first shuts off completely the light of the sun. At that instant the solar corona flashes out and the total eclipse begins.
Shadow Passes Rapidly.
The observer is then within the umbra and totality lasts only so long as he remains within it. As an average, the umbra will require less than three minutes to pass by any one place, but the extreme length of a total solar eclipse is nearly eight minutes.
Those who will be lucky enough to make the journey to any of the towns over which the shadow of the eclipse will appear will do well to get as near the center of the favored zone as possible. It will not be necessary to take a telescope, but a smoked or dark glass can be used to advantage to watch the progress of the moon in its preliminary phase, the glass should be discarded as soon as the totality arrives.
100 Years Until Next Eclipse in U.S.
Not until 2017 will another total solar eclipse be visible over so large an area of this country, and it is rare that an eclipse track anywhere in the world offers so great a choice of accessible sites for observing the eclipse.
The solar eclipse of today began at sunrise at Borodino Islands, south of Japan, and is visible as a partial eclipse in southeastern Asia, in the Arctic and North Pacific oceans and thruout [sic] North America. It passes thru [sic] the United States and ends at the Bahama Islands.
It is known the Chinese hold the credit of possessing the very first record of a solar eclipse which occurred in 2136 B.C. Another eclipse, that of 585 B.C., was foretold by the Greek astronomer, Thales of Miletus, and thus was the first one prophesied by a European.
(Any information about eclipse viewing procedures provided in historical articles should be considered unsafe)
