Show NW flames shooting out from surface of the sun prepared by the national geographic society washington 0 C THE ninth of may the sun ON 0 and and mooil moon staged another of their great periodic I 1 I 1 dramas lo 10 willel which I 1 the I 1 queen que e a of the night for afew a few minutes ban ishOU tife the king of the day and ruled the sky no one in america or europe could see this great show of the heavens for the moons shadow swept over only a narrow band extending from the middle of the indian ocean to beyond the philippine islands and the pencil of at ilar darkness kness traced roost most of its title hue over water but if crossed land in northern Suma sumatra the southern tip of slam shim and the northern malay states just touched southern cambodia and swept across the middle philippines but so important was this brief blotting out of the sun to the scientists of the world that parties of them journeyed to these far off lands in the alie path of the shadow taking with them elaborate instruments and cameras yet the total eclipse that brought about all this travel and expense lasted only five minutes in sumatra and less than four in the philippines it was not the darkness itself that interested the observers but rather the haze of light that appeared around tile circumference of the lightless moon for that Is the of the sun and it ft holds many secrets also aiso they wanted to see eee the stars star that shine immediately past the edge of the blotted out sun for their position may shed new light on the einstein theory meanwhile the man in the street will be wanting ato to know what Is the use of such euch investigations anyway and if the astronomer takes time to answer it wll wil be to say 1 I dont know nor could anyone foretell what new truths would be discovered or foresee what new applications to human welfare they may have but new scientific knowledge always tills has a way of turning mens minds to its application to human buman necessities today to in pence peace times we see the great greaf dirigible the los angeles flying through our skies without fear of the gas explosion which lias has wrecked so many superb lighter than air craft and all largely because lockyer in 1808 1868 training his spectroscope on the great lames flames that shoot out from the rim of the sun detected a new line in their spectrum tie eie noticed its close resemblance to the lined of hydrogen and concluded it must be the spectra keople signature of a light gas unknown to terrestrial chemists how hellem was wa found twenty eight years passed with everybody thinking that this gas wils was a stranger to the earth then sir willaim ramsay obtained minute quantities of a new gas from lie imprisoned in a test tube and electrically tri cally excited it began to glow studied with the spectroscope it showed the same telltale autograph that hint lockyer had observed more years passed the world war was on and america had bad entered it the housewives of the plains of kansas rashad bad been complaining of the quality of their natural gas it make enough heat or sufficient light A maddle western university professor H P cady wan sent seni down to find out the trouble in ills his spectroscope appeared once more the unmistakable sIgn signature that had come to lockyer ramsay and to sir ernest rutherford in his hia manifold investigations of radio activity it told him why that gas produce sufficient clent heat bent and nd light 11 contained helium as inert as stone nod and playing pin ing the same role in natural gaa that slate plays in coal then the i n afi aba Amerl american can chemical society met the university professor was put on the program to tell of his discovery he apologized for intruding a theme upon the attention of that greit great body which could not by the lie longest stretch of his bia imagination have any bearing on the momentous issue before which all other matters should stand silent but after he be spoke a venerable british savant declared that he fie need offer no apology that if the war orar went on another two years the professors contribution would do more to promote victory than all the other contributions to the proceedings alin came helium as tile the straw that would break the back it if all other weights should fall it made po possible elble tile the construction of glant dirigibles which could conduct raids over the enemy lines without fear of inflammable bullets and it was the training of a spectroscope tro scope on a huge flame on the rim of the sun during an eclipse that bad first revealed this element thrills in astronomy romance astronomy offers more thrills to the alert human mind than all the fiction in the library of congress could pro provide vIdel I 1 recently millions of people listened in on the election speeches and returns and marveled once more atthe at the wonders of radio but they little dreamed that a patient danish astronomer tro nomer had done the pioneer work which released bells telephone from the bondage of wires and made the ether of space its servant when roemer found that eclipses of the moons of jupiter occurred 10 minutes earlier when jupiter and tile the earth were on the same side of the sun arn than when on opposite sides lie he deduced that light was not instantaneous but traveled at about miles a second clerk maxwell concluded that light to travel at such a velocity must be electromagnetic electro magnetic and that there must be other wave lengths than those which register on tile the human fiuman eye hertz detected these hypothetical waves marconi harnessed them to signaling and made them the burden bearers ol of ioune vacuum ubea tubes can now take the infinitesimal bit of energy these waves possess after spanning a continent a bit of energy no greater than a tiny fraction of f that expended by a fly in crawling up a window pane and stepping them up and amplifying them make them capable of producing a room filling sound here Is an inkling of a solution of the problem of power sources after coal and oil 01 supplies are gone studying sirius the gay dog star and his less brilliant companion astronomers have found indications that this satellite of the dog star has nearly as much mass as the sun although it Is only a little larger than the earth if that be true then there are states of matter of which man never dreamed before on that basis tills this dark star would be times as heavy as the same bulk of water in other words a pint of the material composing that star would weigh 25 tons the world Is looking for a good con ductor doctor of electricity that will enable industry to transmit long distances without undue loss of energy lt it ls Is possible that this new cw understanding of the constitution of matter might lead to the open door of a new band and better conductor to take the place of the diminishing supply of copper in the transmission of electrical power should such a conductor be found then the ilie melting snows of the and the andes of the aps fps is and the himalayas might turn the wheels of tho the worlds industries industries light the lamps of its homes find and produce all the fires of its kitchen ranges and sitting room fireplaces the astronomer and the physicist have pooled their forces in cross ex amiling the atom in the test tubes rubt s of tile the laboratory and the cosmic crucibles cruci bles of the skies they ar are attacking it with X rays spectroscope a and other instruments of atomic torture to io make it ft sui surrender render the secret tt it hh ani withheld from humanity for so long lone |