Mr. Bateson Has A Date

Date With the Sun

|N the morning of June 8, Mr. f Frank Bateson, accountant to the Cook Islands Trading Com my, Rarotonga, was missing from s office.

It was thought that only some itural phenomenon could account r this—and it was a correct agnosis.

Mr. Bateson was busily engaged th the 9-in. telescope at his Taku ,ine home, recording for posterity e Rarotonga version of the Solar ;lipse of that day. Perfect “see g” conditions prevailed and he as satisfied with his morning’s nervations.

As an astronomer, Mr. Bateson is a considerable reputation. Be re arriving in Rarotonga ten ars ago he was lecturer in tronomy at Victoria University allege, Wellington.

As one of the few active tronomers in the vast Pacific lands area, it sometimes happens at his Rarotongan site is an tronomical box-seat, and this cer inly applied on June 8.

In its 28-day circuit of our planet e moon interposes between us and e sun more frequently than is nerally realised. There are at ast two partial Solar Eclipses ery year. Each is confined to a latively small portion of the earth id the locale is never the same r ice in succession.

In this particular instance the tal eclipse took place in a most >lated spot, in the great landless mthern Ocean some 1,200 miles uth of Rarotonga.

Thus it was beyond the reach of fil organised expeditions that irmally evolve to cope with such tra terrestrial affairs. In the outer .rtial eclipse area, only New Zea nd and some South Pacific islands jre embraced.

And, as it happened, in the land the “Long White Cloud,” the Dud was pretty black in places, id Carter Observatory, Wellington, is completely blanketed from eful participation.

Should it prove that other eager tronomers in New Zealand were nilarly frustrated by weather con tions, it could be—now that Apia jservatory is no longer astronomic ly minded—that this particular ilar Eclipse was a purely private ’air between the sun, the moon, id Mr. Bateson.—GFR.

Tf Mrs. Flora Stewart, owner of the Hotel Cecil, Lae, New Guinea, is off on her travels again. She left Lae early July to revisit North Queensland, particularly Cooktown, where she was born. She will later, in company with her daughter, Mrs.

Leo Bowman, of Port Moresby, go on to New Zealand and Honolulu and be back in Australia in time for the Olympic Games in Mel boune. fl The marriage of Mrs. Betty Watts and Mr. Ken Fisher was celebrated in the Lutheran Church, Lae, on June 2. The bride is the daughter of a well-known Territorian, Mrs.

Vernie Thomas.