SUNBLOCK
Sunblock
Scientists flocked to Pinehurst for the eclipse of 1900
By Bill Case
Situated on Ritter Road in the Old Town section of Pinehurst is a decidedly quirky monument that could conceivably double as an immovable outdoor coffee table. A rectangular brick base, 18 by 21 inches wide and 18 inches in height, supports a circular sandstone slab 4 inches thick and 30 inches in diameter. Punched in the middle of the slab is a tiny hole.
Curiously, there are no inscriptions on the monument to indicate its significance. In 2001, the Pinehurst Civic Group placed a small engraved marker near the monument, a foot above ground level, for the purpose of enlightening puzzled passersby. The marker, titled SOLAR ECLIPSE MONUMENT MAY 28, 1900, reads:
On this spot astronomers and scientists from around the country came to observe and photograph the eclipse. The punchmark in center is basis for all computations of location and distance measurements in this section of the country. It is also part of a gigantic scheme of world mapping that covers the entire Earth. Additional information at Tufts Archives in village.
To increase awareness of the mostly overlooked site, a tall historic landmark sign with identical verbiage was recently erected along Ritter Road by the village of Pinehurst.
So, what circumstances caused eminent men of science to select Pinehurst, then solely a winter resort town, as the ideal spot to observe and study the solar eclipse? It would have been an inconvenient time for them to work here. By May 28, 1900, the fledgling resort and town would have already ceased operations for the summer. Who were these scientists, and what did they accomplish? Where did they eat and sleep?
While the Tufts Archives has in its collection numerous photographs pertaining to the Pinehurst eclipse expedition of 1900, it has little documentation concerning it. Like the resort, the Pinehurst Outlook, first printed in 1897, was in mothballs for that summer and would not resume operations until early November. The January 5, 1900, edition of the paper did, however, herald the fact that “an excellent view of the total eclipse of the sun (on) May 28 . . . one of the great events of 1900, may be had at Pinehurst.”
Fortunately, other newspapers, including the Baltimore Sun, Charlotte Daily Observer, Charlotte News and the Henderson Gold Leaf, did report on the Pinehurst eclipse expedition. A digital search of these ancient publications helped piece together the story.
The Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., was the prime mover in organizing the Pinehurst expedition. Stimson J. Brown, the director of the observatory, petitioned Congress to authorize $5,000 to fund three eclipse stations. Two were in Georgia — one in Barnesville and the other in Griffin. The third was to be located in the vicinity of Southern Pines. The three expeditions were charged with performing identical missions, the thought being that if cloud cover hampered observations at one of the sites, hopefully the sky would be clear at the others. The May 28 total solar eclipse was the first in America since 1878, and with scientific techniques having improved markedly, there was much to be learned.
Brown tabbed the observatory’s professor of mathematics, Aaron N. Skinner, to find a suitable location to observe the eclipse in or near Southern Pines. Following Skinner’s two-day visit to the area in April 1900, he chose Pinehurst as the site. Though the town would be closing down on May 1, four weeks before the eclipse, resort owner, James W. Tufts (according to a report authored by Skinner) “courteously extended an invitation to the N.O. to locate an eclipse observatory on the property.” Tufts assigned resort general manager C.D. Benbow the task of arranging necessary housing. Skinner reported that J.M. Robinson, owner of The Lenox rooming house (which later burned down and is now the site of a residence at 175 Cherokee Road), was induced to keep his operation open “for our entertainment.”
In fact, the emptiness of the town was viewed as a plus, according to the May 20 edition of the Charlotte Daily Observer (in an article reprinted from the Baltimore Sun), which said, “There are no curious persons to hinder the work . . . on the eventful morning.” Furthermore, the Pinehurst location seemed “to be all that is desired. There are no trees, woods, or buildings to obscure the view of the sun.” A marked contrast to the Ritter Road of today.
Professor Skinner and the observatory’s assistant astronomer, Theo King, arrived in Pinehurst on May 3 to begin preparations for the expedition on the “plot of ground about 800 feet southeast of the Carolina Hotel,” which was then in the final phase of construction. Because the station’s precise longitudinal and latitudinal position was critical, the first order of business was to lay out a “meridian line” toward true north.
Naval Observatory records indicate that Skinner, in locating that line, placed a landmark exactly 1,100 feet north from the tiny hole in the monument slab. Does this landmark still exist? Using the compass on an iPhone and proceeding due north from the monument approximately 1,100 feet, I saw a circular metal object in the ground off Caddell Road. It was covered with design features that looked like astrological symbols. Could this be the long lost marker?
Uh, no. What I had discovered was a manhole cover — albeit an intricately designed one — made in India. The marker does, however, still exist. As luck would have it, Jill Gooding, the granddaughter of Pinehurst’s jack-of-all-trades (including surveyor) Rassie Wicker, was able to show me the location of the true north marker stone I had failed to find.
On May 8,, 1900, team members began trickling into Pinehurst to join Skinner and King. This was more than just a Naval Observatory operation. A contingent of six from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, led by 35-year-old physicist and professor Joseph S. Ames, would play a key role in the expedition. Ames would later ascend to the presidency of Johns Hopkins. He would also serve as a founding member and longtime chairman of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the predecessor of NASA. Professor R. W. Wood from the University of Wisconsin, Dr. F.L. Chase from Yale, and the Cincinnati Observatory’s E.I. Yowell rounded out the expedition. Ultimately 16 team members would have roles to play during the actual eclipse.
Other expeditions were arriving at various destinations along the eclipse’s 50-mile-wide path. The Smithsonian Astrological Observatory shipped several railroad cars of equipment from Washington, D.C., to Wadesboro, N.C. They were joined by teams from Princeton University, the University of Chicago, and the British Astronomical Association. Wadesboro was chosen because of the belief that the town’s high elevation made it less likely that clouds would impede visibility. Unlike Pinehurst, spectators flocked to Wadesboro in massive numbers (including those who arrived on a special excursion train from Charlotte) to view the eclipse and the feverish efforts of the Smithsonian expedition. The wave of people and publicity would cause Wadesboro to be generally remembered as the best place to have witnessed the 1900 eclipse.
The Naval Observatory’s longtime historian, Geoffrey Chester, explained to me why eclipse expeditions proliferated at the turn of the century. Scientists were eager “to help refine the theory of the moon’s orbit in order to provide more precise data for navigational almanacs,” he says. “By observing the actual times of the ‘contacts’ of the moon’s climb with that of the sun, and comparing those with predicted values, those corrections could be incorporated into a refined theory.”
Moreover, the Naval Observatory’s historian says that “there were many measurements that could only be made during a total solar eclipse — in particular, high-resolution spectrograms of the sun’s chromosphere . . . and the solar corona,” which enabled scientists to measure the elements present in these areas.
A May 26, 1900, article in the Charlotte Observer confirmed that the Naval Observatory’s expedition would indeed be studying the “the nature and constitution of the corona and chromosphere of the sun,” and elaborated on the reasons in layman’s terms: “(The atmosphere) of the sun consists of vapors or metals such as iron, calcium, and silver, together with many ordinary gases, such as hydrogen and oxygen. This atmosphere is called the chromosphere. Outside it, and seen on the Earth only at times of total eclipses, is a sort of irregular halo, with streamers going off in different directions, all of a brilliant white color against the blue of the sky. The cause of this corona is unknown . . . an attempt will be made to see how many different agencies are taking part in it, and to learn if its existence depends solely on the sun itself.”
On May 8, the various instruments required by the expedition were shipped from Washington to Pinehurst by the Seaboard Air Line Railroad via freight car, and the team members diligently worked to assemble them. With the exception of last-minute adjustments, the staging of the Pinehurst site was completed several days later. A number of brick and cement piers, as well as wooden structures and tarps, were constructed to support and house the equipment. Among the instruments was a telescope mounted on two axes of motion parallel to the Earth’s axis, transits, and several types of spectrographs designed to assist the scientists in their quest to analyze the corona and chromosphere by splitting their emitted light into its component parts. A darkroom and 40-foot tower housed the camera equipment that would photograph the various phases of the eclipse. From a distance, the site would have given the impression of an outdoor produce market next to an oil well.
While attendance for the eclipse at Pinehurst was paltry compared to Wadesboro, there was an influx of camp followers in town as the event approached. Ames reported that in the final two days, “all the meals at the astronomers’ boarding house (the Lenox) were served in two or three relays.” The actual working team of the expedition was “given the right of way, and had the privilege, if it may be called that, of having breakfast at 5 a.m.”
After that, according to Ames, “came the preparations of the buildings for action. The curtains were raised from the sides of the observatory, rafters were taken out, and hastily constructed roofs were taken down. In a short time, all the instruments were exposed to the sky, where the sun was slowly rising.”
Final rehearsals followed as the team members synchronized their watches. “We all knew that the instant of second contact had been calculated at 46 minutes, 16 3/10 seconds past 8 o’clock.” Ames confided, “There is enough uncertainty as to the moon’s true position at any time to make it possible there might be an error of a second or two in this predicted time.” The excitement within the team “was more intense than one would have expected. No one was willing to acknowledge this until afterwards.”
When the moment of first contact was announced, tensions were forgotten as the team sprang into action. They knew that the big moment of the “second contact” would be occurring in an hour and 10 minutes. “Everyone had his piece of smoked metal or colored glass,” said Ames, “and was intently watching the wasting away of the sun.”
Ames was fascinated by the spectacle unfolding before him. In conveying its grandeur, he wrote, “No wonder the poets of ancient civilization could picture the conflicts of huge beasts, one consuming the other in this great spectacle of nature.”
One researcher who was especially interested in examining shadow bands readied his stroboscope and spread a large linen sheet perpendicular to the sun’s rays, but the results of that particular experiment proved disappointing. Ames reported that “the shadow bands were conspicuous by their feebleness.”
At 8:46 and 6 3/10 seconds the team “heard the cry ‘Attention!’” meaning there was less than 10 seconds to go before the second contact. “All the photographic slides were withdrawn. Not a sound was heard even from the surrounding crowd,” wrote Ames.
Announcement of the command to “Go!” was assigned to Johns Hopkins team member Dr. W.B. Huff. He was to shout it immediately upon observing the flash signaling the start of the second contact. To perceive it, Huff employed a binocular, one barrel of which was fitted with a small diffraction grating.
Ames vividly describes the flurry of activity when Huff gave the command. “The lenses were uncapped, shutters were opened, and as the monotonous calling of the seconds proceeded one could dimly hear the sounds of changing plates and sliding camera boxes.” The predominant thing in the observers’ consciousness “was the rapidity of the flight of seconds and the absolute need of never allowing one’s mind to leave the work in hand even for an instant.”
However, there was a glitch in the timing of the command. “Unfortunately the small diffraction grating attached to the binocular failed to render viable the flash at the second contact and delayed the starting signal by 25 or 30 seconds,” said Skinner’s report. “Consequently valuable time was lost.”
Once the action started time passed rapidly until Huff shouted, “Done!” The eclipse was over as the crescent of the sun gradually peeked out from behind the moon. After the taking of a few final spectrum photos, the dismounting and packing of the equipment commenced. “As fast as the covers were screwed on the boxes were carried to a freight car standing nearby,” wrote the professor, “and in an almost incredibly short period the appearance of the whole place had changed entirely.” By 10 o’clock, all evidence of the expedition was gone, except, of course, for the monument.
Notwithstanding the delay in calling out the flash, the expedition provided substantial data and excellent photographs of the corona and total eclipse. Ames declared it a success and credited “the energy and industry of Professor Skinner, who has done everything in his power to carry out the plans formed early in the year by Professor Brown.”
The expedition was largely forgotten in Moore County until an article in the Nov. 28, 1931, edition of the Pinehurst Outlook when the paper’s editor, Bion Butler, described efforts to determine the precise longitude and latitude of what is now the Moore County Airport. It was the legendary Rassie Wicker who arrived at a simple solution: Use as a starting point the solar eclipse monument, known to have a north longitude of 35 degrees, 11 minutes, and 38.23 seconds and a west latitude of 79 degrees, 28 minutes, and 12 seconds, then work from there. And that’s what happened.
Thus, the humble “coffee table,” left behind by the Naval Observatory nearly 125 years ago, rather uniquely, served a practical purpose — as well as commemorating a historic astronomical event. Doesn’t that make it the best type of monument?