534 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE Vol. XXVI, 1919 



clouds. However, not more than five minutes before totality, the 

 sun came out between two great cumulus clouds and a large rift in 

 the cirrus cloud bank floated leisurely over the sun. It was the 

 most precious bit of blue sky, I think I have ever seen. My first 

 photograph shows a trace of the haze on the eastern limb of the 

 moon. The other plates, however, do not indicate the slightest trace 

 of a cloud. The fourth contact was observed through rather thick 

 haze 



The darkness did not seem as intense as I had anticipated. The 

 observers seemed to have no difficulty in reading the faces of their 

 watches. This is easily accounted for, not only by the compara- 

 tively short duration of the eclipse, for we must remember that the 

 sun is still shining some forty miles away, but by the cloudy condi- 

 tion of the sky as well. The clouds seem to reflect the light into 

 the shadow path. Just before totality, the temperature fell 5°F. 

 The air felt very much like the air in a low swale or hollow at 

 night. The prairie owls came out and gave their cries, and the 

 night hawks circled overhead. I heard distinctly the roosters at a 

 nearby farm house crow several times after the shadow passed. 



The phenomenon of the approaching shadow was a disappoint- 

 ment to all. No distinct outline was seen, either in the distance or 

 just at the moment of totality. Like a flash, the sun's light went out 

 and we found ourselves in darkness. The receding shadow was 

 more conspicuous. The sunlight seemed to be chasing the shadow 

 over the distant hills. The weird, unnatural appearance of the 

 landscape, which was so notable before totality, did not follow the 

 re-appearance of the sun. 



HISTORICAL 



Solar eclipses, like many other astronomical phenomena, occur 

 with a regular periodicity. All eclipses occurring at the same node 

 at intervals of eighteen years ten and a half days form what is 

 known as a series. Using the eclipse of June 8, 1918, as illustration, 

 we find that it is the forty-first of a series which started as a very 

 small partial eclipse near the south pole on March 10, 1179 (See F. 

 E. Seagrave's article on "Recurrence of Solar Eclipses" in "Popular 

 Astronomy," May, 1918), and that it has re-occurred every eighteen 

 years, constantly increasing in magnitude until it became annular 

 on June 4, 1323. The first total eclipse in this series was on April 

 25, 1846, and they will continue to be total until August 22, 2024, 

 after which they become partial and disappear about the year 2278. 

 We have, therefore, just celebrated the forty-first birthday of a 



