A Darkness At Midday
Nature’s Non-Violent Demonstration
-i Rv W S Puss Jr
• Except to astronomers, young
lovers and some of those more
poetically inclined individuals,
the inlikely alliance of star
gazing and social gambits might
seem to pose an odd pair of
bedfellows. Yet, with next
week’s strange skyward spectacle
in store for our area, lots of
other unusual turns will be in
prospect.
The particular star to be
involved is our own sun, whose
light will be stolen by the moon,
momentarily plunging the
brightness of early afternoon
into an eerie twilight pall. The
social element arises from the
throngs of outlying spectators
who will flock into the local
85-mile-wide swath which finds
Chadboum within six miles of
its center. So, why not make the
first move and invite friends in
for an “E-Day” weekend and
share with them a sight that
most persons never witness in a
lifetime?
Coming as it does during
“prime viewing time” on
Saturday and with the sun
standing 4P degrees high in the
sky, the total solar eclipse of
March 7 offers an unique
opportunity to renew old
acquaintances and, perhaps, to
gain some new ones.
As infrequently as they
happen over a given spot—only
about once in 400 years—total
eclipses aren’t really too rare
when considered globally. Some
seventy of them typically occur
somewhere over the earth during
a century. But their effect is
largely lost to sight over vast
ocean waters, through polar
wastes or in sparsley inhabited
or inaccessible regions.
Voluminous commentaries and
thousands of photographs and
artists’ renditions have sou^it to
describe the matchless splendor
of a total solar eclipse. But to
any perceptive observer of such
events in the past, no such
description can fully convey the
awesomeness of the event itself
when seen in a clear sky.
The local circumstance is but a
brief scene in a long play which
begins with a sunrise splashdown
in the equatorial Pacific as the
moon’s umbra—its dark central
shadow—first intercepts the
earth’s surface southeast of the
Christmas Atoll and speeds
eastward over the ocean. After
pouring its darkness landward
over Mexico’s Isthmus of
Tehauntepec, it goes Gulfward
and first abuts the U.S. mainland
in the eastward reaches of
Florida’s Panhandle. Racing
northeastward, the shadow
crosses the Georgia-Carolinas’
coastal plains and heads out to
sea just south of Hampton
Roads.
Skirting the New England
coastline and directly affecting
Nantucket Island, the
phenomenon passes over the
eastern Maritime Provinces and
finally dies at sea in a North
Atlantic sunset south of Iceland.
Locally, the band of totality
will embrace all of the
five-county area of Columbus,
Bladen, Robeson, Marion and
Horry. But to observe the eclipse
for its maximum duration of
two minutes, fifty-eight seconds,
viewers should station
themselves along the central
path which enters the state just
south of Fair Bluff, grazes Cerro
Gordo to the west, passes
Evergreen a couple of miles
eastward and goes almost
directly over Abbottsburg and
Elizabethtown. The
2000-mile-an-hour shadow will
rush into North Carolina within
a half minute past 1:28 p.m.
As a partial eclipse, the event
will be witnessed to some degree
over all of North America except
the central and western regions
of Alaska. More than a hour and
a quarter before “second
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contact” (the beginning of
totality), the moon may be seen
to impinge on the southwest
limb of the solar disc and
gradually encroach over the
sun’s surface.
“CAUTION: Partial-Eclipse
Viewing May Be Hazardous to
Your Eyesight.” Only expensive
professional optical devices can
assure safe direct observing of
the partial phases. Looking at
this part of the event through
smoked or colored glass, densely
exposed photographic negatives
or other crude implements can
cause permanent visual
impariment—even total
blindness. Hie simplest and
safest method is to punbh a
clean nailhole through a piece of
thin carboard and allow the sun
to focus its own diminishing
image on a light surface beneath.
Hie total eclipse itself may be
viewed without danger.
Actually, Nature provides her
own focusing mechanism for
persons who are near whatever
leafy evergreen foliage is
available. Fuzzy little crescent
images may be seen forming over
the ground and against tree
trunks and building structures as
the fading sunlight streams
through interstitial openings
between the leaves.
All that is strange about a
developing solar eclipse is not
confined to the heavens. Odd
things begin to happen in the
land too: flowering shrubs
enfold their blossoms as the sky
darkens and the temperature
drops after the one o’clock hour;
birds dart about, chirping
nervously and seek their nest;
bats, night-flying insects and
other nocturnal creatures stream
from their dens; dogs cower and
bark; livestock head toward
shelter; domestic fowl run to
roost. Indeed, it seems that all
living thing sense an apparent
fouling of the diurnal
clockwork. Even man himself
stands in hushed astonishment at
the incredible drama that is
about to unfold—something that
sent his ancient forebears fleeing
in terror.
The kind of semi-darkness that
invades the landscape is quite
NOW THAT THE NEW BRIDGE
IS OPEN ITS EAST TO GET TO
HALL'S DRUG
Store
When coming to Wilmington turn left at 5th
and Dawson.
We have always enjoyed doing business with
our Brunswick County friends ... and hope to do
more.
You'll enjoy the friendly folks at HALL'S.
HALL'S DRUG STORE
5th «. Cosale Streps WILMINGTON. N. C.
CITY TAGS \
' *' "! V •
City lags Expire On 15 February
The 1970 Tags Are On Sale At City
Hall, Persons Found Operating Vehicl
es After That Date Without Valid City
Tags Are Subject To A Penalty Or
Fine.
Police Department
City Of Southport
New Camara.
Feb. 26 th.
We've never announced a car at this time before.
But then nobody's ever announced a car like this before.
Super Hugger
If it were an ordinary sportster, we’d have intro
duced it at the ordinary time.
Instead, we took the time to build a whole new
Camaro.
We started with a sleek new shape and a low road
hugging stance.
And added mqre hood. A faster fastback. Wider
doors. And new deeply contoured bucket seats.
The instrument panel wraps around you. With
enough dials to make you think you’x*e piloting a 747.
There are four transmissions. And six power plants
up to the Turbo-Jet 396 V8 that you can order. J
Pick the one that best suits your driving. Then go *,„■
pick on an open road.
And make it one with plenty of twisting turns.
Because Camaro has a remarkable new suspension.
And standard front disc brakes for a leech-like grip
on the road.
New Lamaro. I he buper Hugger.
Other sportsters always feared it might
come to this.
And they were right. Only their tim
ing was wrong.
Putting you- first, keeps us first.
See it. At your
Chevrolet Sports Dept.
GM
Caniaro Sport Coupe with RS equipment.
unlike that of the usual
golden-hued sunset. Instead, a
deepening ashen pallor envelopes
the scene; and in the last few
minutes before totality weird
undulating patterns of light
shudder through the
atmosphere. These “shadow
bands” are indistinctly cast
against any large light-colored
surface.
If the atmosphere is quite
clear, observers with an open
vantage toward the southwest
may see the shadow itself
approaching at unbelievable
speed and appearing as a diffuse
towering dud of locusts. In the
same instant the few dying rays
of sunlight streak through the
northeastern crags of the moon’s
dark face to form “Baily’s
bead.” In a second or two they
are gone, and the fully glory of
the total edipse appears.
The sun stands in mid-heaven,
yet its face is completely
obscured by the stark blackness
of a new moon. Instead, there is
seen the tenuous, pearly-white
plasma of the solar corona,
extending out into the sky in
irregular directions. Through
binoculars there may be
detected flickering scarlet
prominences delicately piercing
tlie corona.
Of the six planets which are
ever normally visible to the
unaided eye, portions of five will
be favorably placed for
observation during the
“blackout” Tiny Mercury will
be in the vanguard, lying just
southwest of the sun. Flanking
the eclipse somewhat closer on
the opposite side will be our to
the northeast Mars and Saturn
will bring up the rear elements in
that order and in dose array.
Jupiter won’t make the scene
this time. The giant planet,
together with his dozen moons,
will have retired in the west long
before the eclipse begins.
It’s that remaining object
which is in many ways the most
peculiar one of the lot. As is
always the case with land-bound
man, only in times quite recent
that large expanses of its surface
have been directly seen. But as
(Continued On Page Three)
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