PROF. SHAPLEY WILL SHED LIGHT ON ECLIPSE OF THE SUN

"Coming Eclipses of the Sun and Moon" is the subject of a lecture which Professor Harlow Shapley of the University Observatory will give at the New Lecture Hall tomorrow at 4 o'clock.

Professor Shapley is a very well known astronomer, and has made a special study of eclipses. He has taken a leading part in the preparations which are being made at the University Observatory for the coming total eclipse of the sun, which occurs on January 24. Although its surface will be only 99 percent covered by the moon at Cambridge, the eclipse will be total in the western part of Massachusetts, and Professor Shapley plans to travel to an observatory there or in eastern New York state. Other members of the Observatory, including assistant Professor Edward S. King will probably go to the Maria Mitchell Observatory on Nantucket Island, where the eclipse will also be total.

Professor Shapley and his associates are devoting their particular attention to the problem of the corona, which consists of rays of light appearing around the edge of the moon when it completely covers the sun. What it is made up of is still a mystery to the world and it is hoped that Professor Shapley's observations may shed some light on the subject. His lecture, which is open to the public, is given under the auspices of the Harvard chapter of the Gamma Alpha Scientific Society.