34 
commissioner of fisheries, Spencer Fuller- 
ton Baird. Epwin Linton 
WASHINGTON AND JEFFERSON COLLEGE 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE SOLAR 
ECLIPSE MADE BY THE 
CROCKER EXPEDITION 
OF THE LICK OB- 
SERVATORY} 
THE preparations for observing the total 
eclipse, including the standardizing of the 
photographie plates by means of a standard 
lamp and the loading of the plate holders were 
completed Friday evening. The weather condi- 
tions were not promising Saturday morning, 
with the sky completely covered with clouds of 
medium thickness, and these continued 
throughout the day, except for a short break, 
which proved to be one of the most remarkable 
coincidences known to me. 
The prospects for a clear sky were appar- 
ently hopeless during the long hours of wait- 
ing, almost up to the time of totality. Fifty 
minutes before the moon’s shadow was due to 
reach us we noticed a thinning of the clouds 
near the western horizon. It seemed hopeless 
to expect that the rift would continue or reach 
the region of the sky that we were interested 
in, bat it did. 
A very small area of the blue sky free from 
clouds had the sun at its center exactly at the 
center of the total phase, and all other parts 
of the sky were clouded. This region cleared 
not more than a minute before the beginning 
of totality, and clouds again covered the sun 
less than a minute after the passing of the 
shadow. 
All of the instruments and all of the ob- 
servers were ready, and the program went 
through as planned. Goldendale is situated 
exactly on the central line of the eclipse path. 
Observations made by my colleague, Professor 
Tucker, at Mount Hamilton, several months 
ago, had shown that the moon was slightly 
ahead of its predicted place, and he estimated 
that the eclipse would occur twenty seconds 
earlier than the time set down for it in the 
1 Press despatch revised by the author for publi- 
cation in SCIENCE. 
SCIENCE 
[N. S. Vou. XLVIII. No. 1228 
Nautical Almanac. We accordingly allowed 
for this in our program, and totality began two 
seconds later than Tucker’s predicted time. 
The observed duration, one minute and fifty- 
seven seconds, agreed perfectly with the 
Almanae data. 
DARKNESS UNUSUALLY PRONOUNCED. 
The eclipse was a very dark one, the darkest 
of the six observed by me. The reading of 
newspaper print would have been difficult 
under the open sky. The chickens retired as 
if for the night. They were heard to give the ~ 
morning cock crows before emerging a few 
minutes later. It was probably the shortest 
night in all their lives. 
The eclipse phenomena, both celestial and 
terrestrial, formed a spectacle indescribably 
unusual and magnificent. The solar corona 
was, of course, the center of interest. It seemed 
brighter than usual, and its general outline 
was more elongated than we had expected, in 
view of the fact that we are not far from sun- 
spot maximum. 
The coronal streamers were visible two and 
one half solar diameters to the east and west 
of the sun, but scarcely more than one 
diameter to the north and south, and the out- 
line form was approximately triangular, with 
the eastern steamers converging to a sharp 
vertex at their most easterly point and the 
western streamers diverging to the base of the 
triangle at the most westerly points. The 
photographs thus far developed confirm the 
naked-eye description and extend the east and 
west streamers out to more than three di- 
ameters. 
The solar prominences were numerous and 
large, as we should expect at a time of great 
sun-spot activity, but these did not concern us 
greatly, as they can be observed well without 
an eclipse. However, the prominences con- 
tribute greatly to the interest of the photo- 
graphs, as the arching of the coronal streamers 
around the prominences is conspicuous, leay- 
ing no doubt that the forces which produce the 
prominences are controlling the forms of coro- 
nal streamers in their neighborhoods. 
A few of the twenty-six photographs, secured 
