"Solar eclipses have been my excuse to visit latitudes and cultures I
would never have known otherwise. ...I know the way the keepers of the
Saharan flocks move like cloud shadows
over their cinnamon-colored pastures, how the first rain of the season
breaks like an ocean wave on the streets of Dakar, and how a hand-bored
flute sounds when played in the Saharan dusk. You have to go there to
see how the Sun rises heatless as the Moon yet seems to ring like a bell
in the height of the summer sky. I know these things because the shadow
of the Moon passed over, and I was there to see it."
-- Eight Easy Observing Projects, pp 130-131.
Top: The camp of our
Earthwatch expedition to
Mauritania, June 1973.
Left: Expedition leader Dr. Donald Menzel refines predictions for
eclipse day on an HP-35 calculator -- the single most
astonishing piece of computing hardware around. What became of
your slide rule? Mine hangs on my office wall near this
Pentium 100, itself already yesterday's news [that was the original server
on which these pages appeared; now my desktop holds a 450Mhz P-III, and it's
yesterday's news, too...
Right: This Saharan herdsman came to camp for medical help for an
infected leg. By way of barter or gratitude, he played this flute for
our camp for several evenings.