216 Mr. H. F. Newall. 



6. Assistance. 



Throughout the preparations for the observations I received most 

 valuable assistance from my friend Dr. L. Wallace, who travelled from 

 Burma to Sumatra especially to help in the work of the expedition. 

 Arriving at Sawah Loento on April 18, he accompanied us to Ayer 

 Karoe, and assisted in every possible way to further the aims of the 

 expedition from the moment of his arrival until all the instruments 

 were packed up again on May 26 after the eclipse. It is a great 

 pleasure to acknowledge my deep indebtedness to him for his friendly 

 and efficient help. 



A few days before the eclipse, Lieutenant-Commander Oldham, of 

 H.M.S. " Pigmy," was good enough to tell off Lieutenant H. D. Briggs 

 to come up to Ayer Karoe, together with two petty officers from the 

 " Pigmy," to help in the final preparations, and in the observations. 

 They took part in the preparatory drills and rehearsals, and gave most 

 efficient assistance. 



In the observations during the eclipse itself 



Dr. Wallace was in charge of the double tube camera, and gave the 

 signals, watching the diminishing crescent of the sun upon the blue 

 focussing plate of the Dallmeyer telephotographic camera. 



Lieutenant H. D. Briggs exposed the plates for the objective-grating 

 camera, after having assisted me in making the final adjustment with 

 the diminishing crescent. 



Mrs. Newall made exposures with the quartz spectrograph. 



I made exposures with the 4-prism spectrograph, made observations 

 for detecting the polarisation of the atmosphere, and observed the 

 green coronal ring with the visual objective-grating spectroscope. 



E. Hobart, Chief Stoker, and H. Taylor, Petty Officer, H.M.S. 

 " Pigmy," counted seconds aloud from a metronome, and handed 

 plateholders. 



At 30 seconds before totality Dr. Wallace, watching the diminishing 

 crescent of the sun, and gauging its length by a marked template which 

 I supplied him with, gave a signal to Lieutenant Briggs, and at 

 15 seconds he called out " Stand by." Hobart began counting seconds 

 with the metronome, until Dr. Wallace gave the signal " Go," when 

 the disappearance of the crescent showed that totality had begun. 

 Then Hobart ceased counting, and Taylor began afresh, and counted 

 steadily on to the end of the third minute ; in this count he began each 

 minute with " one," " two," " three," and Hobart called " One minute 

 gone," " Two minutes gone," at each new minute. Then Hobart 

 resumed the counting of seconds, Taylor calling the minutes up to the 

 completion of the sixth minute, it being expected that totality would 

 last for 5 m 42 s , if the prediction based on the ' Nautical Almanac ' 

 elements were true, or for 5 m 32 s if the prediction based on a recent 



