Abstract
THE total eclipse which starts on June 9 next and, crossing the date line, ends on June 8, will be the longest visible for many years, the maximum duration of totality being 7 minutes 4 seconds. It is most unfortunate that the belt of totality lies almost entirely over the ocean and that the maximum duration available from land is reduced to 4 minutes 8 seconds. This is from Enderbury Island in the Phoenix Group (lat. 3° 8-5′ S., long. 171 ° 10-0′ W.) which is described in the Sailing Directions, Pacific Islands Pilot, vol. 2, 1932, as “30 feet high, uninhabited and surrounded by a coral reef, which is steep to. There is no fresh water, no anchorage and landing is difficult”. The island is about 2-5 miles long and 1 mile wide. Of the other islands in the Phoenix Group, which lie within the belt of totality Gardner, McKean, Hall, Birnie, Canton and Phoenix, all uninhabited the most suitable island for landing eclipse apparatus appears to be Canton Island (lat. 2° 28-9′ S., long. 171 ° 42.6′ W.). Here totality lasts 3 minutes 45 seconds. The island is a coral atoll 10-12 feet high, with a spacious lagoon: there is anchorage, in 10 fathoms, unsafe with westerly winds, close to an entrance to the lagoon on the west side. Coco-nuts have been planted on the island, which is nine miles long by four miles wide. The islands are leased by the Colonial Office to Messrs. Burns Philp (South Seas) Co. Ltd., and come under the jurisdiction of H.E. the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific at Suva, Fiji.
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S., F. The lotal Solar Eclipse of June 1937. Nature 139, 698–699 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/139698a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/139698a0