LENGTHY PREPARATION.

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16800, 31 May 1926, Page 8

LENGTHY PREPARATION.

TO SEE SUN’S ECLIPSE. J To make preparations 18 months ahead for an event that will last only a quarter of a minute seems ridiculous. , Yet astronomers have been turning their attention to an eclipse of the sun ; due on June 29th, 1927, which will be , the first total eclipse visible in Britain for over 200 years. On this occasion it is hoped to obtain decisive evidence as to the truth of Professor Einstein’s i world-famous theory of relativity, 1 which assumes that light waves can : travel in curves instead of straight • lines, as most people suppose to be the 1 case. According to one or the Royal Observatory staff, the best places from which to witness the eclipse will be on a line between Southport and Hartle- ' pool. People standing on that line, i or about 10 miles on either side of it, will hud the sun completely hidden by ' the moon. . ! The number of the people which is shortly to be' made in New Zealand serves as a reminder that this useful and necessary custom, common to all modern' countries, was, like all new ideas fiercely assailed when first mooted in England. The Bill introduced in the House of Commons in 1753 for registering an annual account of the number of people and the total of marriages, birth and deaths, was described by one member as “subversive of the last remains of English liberty,” and another member said bis constituents feared that the census would be followed by a public disaster or “epidemical distemper.” The Bill Bill passed the Commons, but was defeated by the Lords, and it was not •until 1801 that the first census was taken.