THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



land, Russia and Northern Siberia the 

 eclipse will, however, be visible. 



Observers above the line MN will 

 see the intensely black lower edge of 

 the moon cover a small portion of the 

 upper part of the bright sun's disc, the 

 eclipse beginning soon after sunrise 

 at a verv few minutes before or 



until next December. Venus now 

 shines sixty times the brightness of a 

 first magnitude star. 



Saturn this month moves quite rap- 

 idly eastward from Gemini into Can- 

 cer. It is being steadily overtaken by 

 the sun and therefore each evening 

 sinks lower in the west, but it is still 



Figure 3. The region of tin- United States within which the solar eclipse of June 19 is visible. 



after seven o'clock A. M. (Eastern 

 standard time). The exact instants of 

 beginning and ending cannot be stated 

 as these differ for every station. Ob- 

 servers farther north will see a greater 

 part of the sun hidden, but from no 

 station will quite so much as one-half 

 of the sun's diameter be covered by the 

 moon. 



The Planets in June. 



As has been stated, three of the 

 brighter planets are now close together 

 in the morning sky, and a special effort 

 to observe these (especially with a 

 -mall telescope) will be well repaid. 



The beautiful planet Venus is stead- 

 ily emerging from the sun's rays into 

 the evening heavens. As it is now in- 

 tensely bright, it can be found without 

 much difficult}', shining in the twilight 

 glow almost directly above the north- 

 west point of the horizon. On June 

 i it sets forty minutes after sunset and 

 this time is increased to one hour four- 

 teen minutes by June 30. In the tele- 

 scope the planet is seen to be nearly 

 full ; it will not attain its crescent phase 



in quite favorable position for observa- 

 tion. This, however, is the last month 

 during which it can be well observed 

 until toward the close of the year, when 

 it will again enter the evening sky. 



The sun will attain its highest posi- 

 tion among the stars on June 21 at 

 seven hours fourteen minutes P. M. 

 Eastern standard time, and this will ac- 

 cordingly be the longest day of the 

 present year. At this time the day, 

 from sunrise to sunset, will be six 

 hours twelve minutes longer than the 

 following night. The true twilight and 

 dawn will increase this duration by 

 more than four hours, while observers 

 whose northern horizon is unobstruct- 

 ed and who are completely removed 

 from all artificial lights may view the 

 faint twilight illumination throughout 

 the entire night. They may see it 

 move along the northern horizon from 

 the west until it attains a position due 

 north at midnight, after which it will 

 move slowly eastward, continually in- 

 creasing in intensity, until it begins to 

 blot out the light of the fainter stars, 

 when the very faint midnight glow will 

 have merged into the true dawn. 



