A naphthalene sublimation technique based on the heat/mass transfer analogy is used to investigate the circumferential mass transfer from a circular cylinder in an approaching uniform shear flow. Experiments are performed in a wind tunnel (450*450m $m^{2}$ with a shear flow generator which is specially manufactured for generating variable shear rates(S). The effects of an approaching shear flow are correlated with mass transfer coefficients. It is found that the local mass transfer rate on a circular cylinder is characterized with the shear parameter $K^{d}$ defined as Sd/ $U^{c}$ , where d is the radius of cylinder and $U^{c}$ is the approaching velocity at the center of cylinder. The angle on the corresponding to minimum Sherwood number is approximately proportional to the shear parameter on an upper and down number is approximately proportional to the shear parameter on an upper and down circular cylinder (0< $K^{d}$ <0.132). Changes on the averaged mass transfer rate are not significant for small $K^{d}$ , which are slightly proportional to K$d^{2}$ but the local mass transfer rates are significantly changed with the approaching shear flow.